Why Suffragists Aid The Colonel.

New York Times 100 years ago today, August 18, 1912:
Expect Every Candidate in the Progressive Party to Talk Suffrage.
To the Editor of The New York Times:
    May I correct a false impression which was given in Mrs. Ida Husted Harper's letter of Aug. 9 concerning the situation In Massachusetts? It is perfectly true that Mrs. Maud Wood Park refused to go as a delegate to the Chicago Convention. Mrs. Park is the paid Secretary of the Boston Equal Suffrage Association, and that society is committed to the policy of non-partisanship.
    Mrs. Louis J. Johnson and I, both volunteer workers of the State association. went to the convention as delegates with other women, also members of the association. Mrs. Richard Washburn Child may not have been a Suffragist before she went to Chicago, but she was certainly one on her return, and she was only one of many hundreds who attended that convention opposed or indifferent to equal suffrage who returned a convert to that cause. Particularly is this true of many of those from the country districts where the subject was little known. These delegates returned to their homes with instructions to work for suffrage. To openly scorn such an offer of help because of a traditional policy of non-partisanship is folly in the extreme.
    Did the Suffragists prepare a trap for Col. Roosevelt, and did he fall into it? It would seem that that was the case, for it was at the suggestion of a Suffragist in New York that the plank was put into the platform and submitted to Col. Roosevelt for approval. The initiative did not come from him, and it is for us to congratulate ourselves that he was far-seeing enough to grasp at the opportunity which the Democrats and the Republicans are now realizing was a mistake to refuse.
    The difference between the planks of the Socialist Convention of May 32, 1912, and the Prohibition platform of July 10, 1912, and the Progressive platform of Aug. 7, 1912, is perfectly evident to any one who reads those planks and reads them without prejudice. One "demands" unrestricted franchise; one "favors," and the third "pledges" itself to work for it. The suffrage planks for the first two parties make no claim upon their parties. To "favor" and to "demand" mean very little. The Progressives give a definite pledge for active work. We expect that every candidate in the Progressive Party is going to talk equal suffrage in the coming campaign, and we are in a position where we can demand it. In tact, the National Committee has already approved a rule urging all speakers in the campaign to make, equal suffrage an issue in the six States that will vote on it this Fall.
    So far as Miss Addams's position is concerned as First Vice President of the National Suffrage Association, she will be guided by her conscience. She realizes quite well the opposition she has aroused by her position, and only a great enthusiasm and belief in the new party? could have influenced her present stand.
    It is not at all clear that the great truths which have been laid down in the Progressive Party were "foreordained and predestined before this party was born." It is quite true that many of the principles have been laid down by other parties, largely as vote catchers, but back of the two old political parties are machines so rotten as to prevent effective work being done, no matter what the platform stands for.
    We are very glad to see men of the type of Mr. Wilson coming into public life, and we feel that he has conferred an honor in accepting the candidacy for an office which is the highest in the gift of the people. Mr. Wilson, however is not a Suffragist, which is putting It as strongly as one can in our favor. His whole training has been with men, and it is impossible to conceive he should know very much about women or what they are doing to-day. Back of him lies the Democratic machine, very strongly organized, whose motive for putting him there was simply and solely in response to the public demand for a man with a clean record, and a recognition by the Democratic Party that no other could possibly win.
    The women who are organizing for the Republicans and Democrats are working outside of the party lines. They will ask for what they want very prettily, no doubt, and we are quite sure that they will be courteously treated in return. What they will get from it is open to very grave doubt. At any rate, we should listen with interest to hear if the "candidates are going to talk equal suffrage."
    Mrs. Harper says the Chicago speeches have "followed the unbroken traditions and unwritten law of the National Association since its founding in 1869; that its members must be absolutely non-partisan; that they must not indorse candidates for party further than to express appreciation of favorable action on woman suffrage" I myself believe that that is a strong argument for changing our action.
    We have worked along these lines for forty-three years, and I think it is safe to assume that a new line of attack can be entered upon without danger to the cause.
    The women in Colorado won their vote from the Populists by taking up the subject of suffrage in much the same way that the Progressive Party is taking up the question to-day. The extension of the franchise to men has been won in the past largely through the same methods, because the vote of the class-to be enfranchised was recognized as necessary to the party adopting it. We are quite frank in saving that we like to think we form a necessary part of the great Progressive movement.
            ELINOR CARPENTER.
            Member Provisional State Committee.
            New York, Aug. 16, 1912.