Debate of March 19, 1896.Question: "Resolved, That Municipal Suffrage should be extended to Women in Massachusetts."

Brief for the Negative.W. W. ORR and T. H. RUSSELL.

Best general references: Nation, Vol. 44, pp. 310 and 362 (Apr. 14 and 28, 1887); Forum XVII, p. 406 (June 1894); Bib. Sac. Vol. 50, p. 331 (Apr. 1893).

I. Municipal suffrage for women would not purify municipal politics.- (a) Married women almost without exception, would vote as their husbands voted: Bib. Sac., Vol. 50, p. 331.- (b) Unmarried women would be likely to vote less wisely than men. For (1) Women are more bitterly partisan, and would be moved more by sympathies than by reason: Forum, XVII, 409.- (2) In Kansas, the elections result less wisely than before women had the suffrage: Nat. Vol. 44, p. 310.- (c) The better class of women would not go to the polls.- (d) The lower classes, under the influence of their husbands and vile politicians, would use their right freely: Nat.vol. 44, p. 310.- (e) The uncounted army of women in brothels and slums would vote under the influence of money.- (f) In New Jersey, woman suffrage was abolished with the concurrence of both sexes, because her corrupt voting rendered the elections of that state a mere farce: Bib. Sac. Vol. 50, p. 331.

II. The problems of municipal government are not to be met by an extension of the suffrage which thoughtful men now consider too broad, but by the education of a livelier public spirit and opinion: Atlan. Vol. 65, p. 331.

III. Women do not want and would not use the municipal suffrage.- (a) In Wichita, Kansas, out of thirty-five women qualified to vote, two hundred voted in 1887: Nation, Vol. 44, p. 362.- (b) In Massachusetts in 1886, only one woman in every two hundred and fifty four could be induced to go to the polls to exercise the school suffrage: Bib. Sac. Vol. 50, p. 331.- (c) When woman suffrage was brought before the people in 1894, only one-tenth of the women of Massachusetts expressed their wish to vote.

IV. If women should mix in political affairs, their elevating influence upon society through the home would be impaired.- (a) Their greatest strength lies in influencing their sons and husbands toward good.- (b) Not only would they lose much of this influence, but also their own self-respect.- (c) The testimony of Kansas points toward a lowering of woman's dignity through politics: Nation, Vol. 44, p. 310.