Woman’s World Column – August 13, 1885 | Archives of Women's Political Communication

Carrie Chapman Catt (Carrie Lane at the time) retired from teaching after the end of the 1884 school year and married Leo Chapman, publisher and editor of the Mason City Republican newspaper, in February 1885. In the March 5 issue of The Republican, Catt’s name appeared in the masthead as co-editor of the paper with Chapman, and on March 19, the first installment of her new column, “Woman’s World,” was published. The Mason City Public Library has microfilm of every issue of The Republican from 1885 except one, and Catt’s column appears nearly weekly through early November. The Chapmans sold the newspaper in April 1886, and there are no extant copies of the paper from that year.

In the July 16, July 23, July 30, August 6, August 13 and August 20 columns, Catt addresses a number of objections to women's suffrage posed by anti-suffragists.

The fifth objection urged is “that the privilege of suffrage granted to women would be a cause of family feuds.” It is supposed that whenever the husband and wife cast their votes for different ends, a political quarrel and family jar would be sure to ensue as the direct result of a difference of opinion, but, without the ballot, women have opinions and sometimes very emphatic ones upon political questions. Subjects frequently arise at the polls which touch very closely woman’s special domain — the home. It may be a question of moral example of a candidate, it may be some matter connected with the public schools, it may be a law of the city — hundreds of questions may arise in which the woman who has a care for the welfare of her children must feel intensely. Deprived of all right to express her opinion at the polls, she is forced to plead with her husband that his vote may represent her sentiments. Too many times these husbands, echoing the contempt the government has shown for woman’s political judgment, only find amusement in the plea. They are not to be blamed for this. Custom, the sternest of all law-makers, has said for centuries back that a woman’s reason was deficient and her judgment valueless. It is not strange men hold some of this prejudice still, but who is there can tell the bitter tears, wives have shed, or the heartaches they have endured because husbands gave no consideration to their entreaties. Ah! here is cause for family feuds. Had these women an equal voice with their husbands at the polls, all this would be removed.

That husbands and wives would sometimes quarrel over politics, even did wives have the ballot, is without doubt true. Were it not for politics, they would find some other question upon which to take issue. It would not matter in the least whether they were wrangling over an important political question or bickering over some domestic triviality.

It is not in the least probable that one more quarrel would follow were women voters, than actually does take place when women are political nonentities. So long as there have been husbands and wives, there have been causes for differences of opinion between them. In all the world’s history there has never been any theme over which excitement has raged so high as religion. Yet we find numerous husbands and wives, believing in different creeds and belonging to different churches, who live in perfect harmony. But, even if this were a prolific cause of “family feuds" there is not an individual in the United States who would say that for this reason women should be allowed no opinions upon religious matters, or that the privilege of church membership be withdrawn from them. The examples are very similar. It is an injustice, apparent to the dullest observer, that a right be withheld from one-half of humanity lest a few altercations arise were the privilege granted.

The revised and completed program to be presented at the Woman’s Congress which meets in Des Moines, Oct. 7, 8, 9, is as follows:

Is the law of Progress one of harmony or discord? Rev. Antoinette Brown Blackwell, of New Jersey.

Comparative Effects on Health of Professional, Fashionable and Industrial Life—Anna D. French, M.D., of New York.

The Production and Distribution of Wealth—Rev. Augusta C. Bristol, of New Jersey.

The Work of the World’s Women—Mrs. H. L. Wolcott, of Massachusetts.

Justice, not Charity, the Need of the Day—Mrs. Mary E. Bagg, of New York.

Organized Work, Illustrated by the W. C. T. U.—Miss Frances E. Willard of Illinois.

The Ministry of Labor—Miss Ada C. Sweet, of Illinois.

The Need of Adjustment between Business and Social Life—Julia Holmes Smith, M.D. of Illinois.

Advantages of the Spoken over the Written Word—Miss Frances F. Fisher, of Ohio.

The Religion of the Future—Miss Imogene C. Fales, of New York.

Women Physicians in Hospitals for the Insane—Jennie McCowen M.D. of Iowa

Human Parasites—Lelia G. Bedell M.D., of Illinois.

The annual meeting of the National Suffrage Association will take place at Minneapolis, the week following the Congress at Des Moines

It seems to me that we men need the help of women to settle the great moral questions of the day, and I think the sooner women are admitted to a share in solving these problems, the better for all concerned.—Senator Hubbell, of Michigan.

Of the women in one generation who wear thin slippers and low necked gowns, is born for the next, a man who has to wear a chest protector, and even then dies of pneumonia.—Woman’s Journal.

Bob Ingersoll says: “Don’t talk too much about the men. Do you know, gentlemen, we probably have not in the American Congress a man so learned in the science of government as was Harriet Martineau? America has never produced a novelist as great as George Eliot and we never had a poet equal to Elizabeth Barrett Browning.”

Almost three millions of women support themselves and families without the aid of husband, father, brother or son—what a vast army! Yet these must take lower salaries, receive less money for the same work than men, because “man is the natural supporter and guardian of the family.” Laws are constantly being made to protect the rights of the working man, but the working woman is generally left to protect herself as best she can, though probably a thousand-fold more oppressed and wronged than her brother. Give her the right to choose her law-makers and she will be equally protected. Individuals, corporations, and society rarely fail to deal justly when compelled to do so by law.—Matilda Hindman, in Pittsburgh Commercial Gazette.

Notes About Women

Louisa M. Alcott has had a sale for her works of over 500,000 copies.

Frances E. Willard recommends the tricycle to women, as furnishing a most healthful exercise. She is sustained in this view by physicians of note.

Eighteen young Polish women, with superior certificates as teachers, have addressed a petition to the minister of public instruction asking to be admitted to the classes of the University of Warsaw. The minister replied by a distinct refusal.

Miss Caroline Whiting, principal of a Grammar School in New York City, celebrated the fiftieth year of her service as a teacher, on the 6th ult. The room was decorated with flowers and her desk was covered with bouquets. She has had 10,000 pupils under her care. Some of the grand-children of her first pupils are not attending her school. The sum of $1000 was presented to her which will, at her request, go to the founding of a hospital library.

Chapman, Carrie Lane. 1885. “Woman’s World.” Mason City Republican, August 13.

PDF version, courtesy of Mason City Public Library