Reading Notes - Carrie Chapman Catt

Reading #1: Carrie Chapman Catt The Crisis by Carrie Chapman Catt Page 1 ❖ President of the National American Woman Suffrage Association ❖ Atlantic City, NJ ; September 7, 1916 ❖ “The Crisis” because she believed a crisis was in movement, & if they recognized it seized the opportunity w/ strength, enthusiasm & will, means the final victory of their great cause in near time to come. ❖ Some suffragists DON’T share this belief ➢ To them, the movement been stable ❖ NO manifestations in 1916 which differ remarkably from 1910   She defends her claim w/ her plea that it’s better to imagine  a crisis where nothing exists than fail to recognize when it comes   ➢ A crisis is a climax of events that calls for new considerations &  decisions. ❖ A failure to take action is a lost opportunity, a possible victory delayed.  ❖ The object of an organized movement life is to ‘secure its aim’ ❖ Must obey the law of evolution & pass through the stages of agitation, education, & of realization. ❖ Familiarity, human vision grows clearer, thought outside & formed into law  ❖ Every period of time comes to a movement & its crisis.  ❖ It’s time for voices to be heard ❖ “The Woman’s Hour has struck” ❖ Assume suffragists, as a whole, DON’T believe a crisis has come & DON’T reach out to grasp the victory, what’ll happen?  ❖ “What if we reach out w/ united earnestness & determination to grip our victory while it’s still hangs too high? ❖ Carrie invited the attention of the suffragists to the signs that point to a crisis & their consideration of plans for turning the crisis into a victory. ➢ 1st: Passing through a world crisis. After the great war nothing will be the same as before. Those who declare to know, claim that $100 millions of dollars are being spent on the war everyday & that 2 years of war have cost $50 billions of dollars or 10x more than the total expense of the American Civil War. Their country has sent $35 million abroad for relief expenses. Page 2 ■ The vast amount of money transfers had become so severe, a startle to organized society that it’d wave around the world & bring untold changes in its wake ❖ 3 & a half million lives lost ➢ Lives of men within the age of economic production ➢ Take from the normal business of the world & every human activity ■ Unskilled labor to art, ■ Science & literature weakened by their loss ❖ The entire population of the American Colonies was less than 3 & one-half millions ❖ Millions of other men will go to their homes; ➢ Blind, ➢ Crippled, ➢ & incapacitated to do the work they once performed. ❖ British & Russian, German & Austrian, French & Italian agree that it’ll lead to the social & political revolution all over the entire world. ❖ If the wife of a man expressed herself, they would have put the entire anti-suffrage argument in a ‘nut-shell.’ ➢ In Europe, from the Polar Circle to the Aegean Sea, women had risen as though to answer that argument. ❖ Places made by men women had there too & grown in self-respect & in the esteem of their respective nations. ❖ When men gone to war, women cultivated the fields for the army & nation to be fed. ➢ No army can be successful & no nation can continue w/out food ➢ Those who supply food are a war power & a peace power ❖ Thousands of women have knocked at the doors of munitions factories &, in the name of patriotism, begged for the right to serve their country there. ➢ Their services were accepted w/out hesitation ❖ 660,000 women were occupied in making munitions in Great Britain alone Page 3 ❖ Munition workers composed of men & women ➢ Rumor gone around informing the gov’t that they’d go w/out vacations & holidays until the authorities announced that their munition supplies were enough for the war needs ➢ & Great Britain pronounced the act the highest patriotism ❖ Qualities of women included steady industry, adaptability, good judgment & concentration of mind that men DON’T willingly associate w/ ❖ In improvised hospitals on the field of war, women have tendered & skilled to care for the wounded & take credit w/ the restoration of life to thousands ➢ Heroism & self-sacrifice of theirs is acknowledged by all gov’ts ➢ BUT their endurance, skill, & practicality of their service recognized by gov’ts as “war power” ❖ Europe realized that “women are holding together the civilization for which men are fighting” ❖ Every European land is partnership w/ equal, but different responsibilities resting upon the 2 partners ❖ In all hostile lands, women have figured their way to high posts of administration where NO women would’ve been trusted 2 years ago ➢ & the evidence is overwhelming that they’ve filled their posts w/ entire satisfaction to the authorities. ❖ They’ve come out of the kitchen since there wasn’t much to cook & found a way to live by ➢ Driving cabs, ➢ Driving motors, ➢ & driving streetcars. ❖ A woman never before slept in a bed of her own making OR ate food NOT prepared by paid labor, is a sole mistress of parlor & kitchen. Page 4 ❖ In all opposing countries, women are postmen, porters, railway conductors, ticket switch & signal men. ❖ Vivid advertisements invite women to attend agricultural, milling & motor-car schools. ❖ Employed as police in Great Britain & women detectives taken on the gov’t staff. ❖ In Berlin, ➢ Over 3,000 women streetcar conductors ➢ 3,500 women employed on general railways ❖ In every city & country, ➢ Women women work that would’ve been considered incompetent 2 years ago. ❖ War will end soon & armies will return to their native lands. ❖ Husbands who return to their wife, WON’T eat bread the rest of his life to save of her earning. ❖ The economic principle, denied & evaded for centuries, will be displayed on every factory, counting house & shop ➢ “Equal pay for equal work” ➢ & commone justice slowly enforced that law. ❖ Men returning find the new order a bit odd BUT everything else will be strangely unfamiliar also, & they’ll soon grow used to all the changes together. ❖ Male & female anti-suffragist of all lands will get upset at the econmic change which will come to the women of Europe. ➢ They’ll declare it to be opposite to Nature & to God’s plan & that somebody ought to do something about it. Suffragists will accept the change as the inevitable outcome of an unprecedented world disaster over which NO human agency had any control of ➢ & will trust in God to adjust the altered conditions to the eternal evolution of human society. ❖ The economic change is bound to bring political liberty ❖ Expressed belief from every land that the war will be followed by a powerful, oncoming wave of democracy ➢ It’s well known that the conflict has been one of gov’ts, of kings, & Czars, Kaisers & Emperors; not of peoples. Page 5 ❖ 3 great provinces of Canada, Manitoba, Alberta, & Saskatchewn, have given universal suffrage to their women in sheer generous appreciation of their war work. Mrs. Henry Fawcett who asked if women suffrage would be included in a proposed election bill, he said that when the war should end, such measure would be considered w/out prejudice carried over from events prior to the war. ❖ Mr. Asquith, in August, was expressed in terms as to be interpreted by many as a pledge to include women in the next election bill. ❖ Practical service & to the sudden comprehension that motherhood is a national asset which must be protected at any price. ❖ A new voters’ list is looked at ❖ The whole nation is agitated over the questions involved in making a new register. ❖ There’s a constant anxiety over war funds, as is wise in a nation spending 50 millions of dollars per day. ❖ "The Woman's Hour has struck." It has struck for the women of Europe and for those of all the world. ➢ The significance of changed status of European women hasn’t been lost upon men & women of our land ➢ Their own people aren’t so unlearned in history ➢ Lacing in National pride they’ll allow the Republic to lag long behond the Empire, took charged of over by the issue of George the 3rd. Page 6 ❖ The Polish Ernestine Rose startled that women of free America drew aside their skirts when she proposed that they should control their own property. ❖ Lucy Stone, publicly claimed that women had brains capable of education. ❖ Susan B. Anthony mobbed from Buffalo to Albany because she demanded fair play for women. ❖ They demand for ➢ women education, ➢ Women religious liberty in few churches, ➢ Women right to own property & an opportunity to earn an honest living ➢ Political freedom & its symbol, the vote. Page 7 ❖ Planks in the platform of the 2 majority parties, & these are well supported by planks in the platforms of all minority parties. ❖ Is the crisis real or imaginary? ❖ Their cause won the endorsement of all political parties. ❖ Every candidate for the presidency is a suffragist. ➢ Has won the endorsement of most churches ➢ has won the hearty approval of all great organizations of women. ➢ Won the support of all reform movements ➢ Won the progressives of every variety ❖ Names of the greatest men and women of art, science, literature and philosophy, reform, religion and politics are on our lists. Page 8 ❖ They burned Joan d’Arc for a heretic ❖ They burned statue William Lloyd Garrison ❖ They egged Abbie Kelley & Lucy Stone ❖ They were merely deaf to the call of Progress & were furious because the world insisted upon moving on. Antis male & female are still there & will be to the end of time ❖ It’s an instinctive act of self-preservation which causes fear & consequently opposes votes for women. ❖ Before they win the vote, there must & will be a huge final conflict between the forces of progress, righteousness & democracy & the forces of ignorance, evil & reaction. ❖ The struggle can’t be avoided BUT can be postponed Page 9 ❖ Philanthropy, charity, work for corrective laws of various kinds, temperance, relief for working women & numberless similar public services have called for them ❖ Others turned to the pleasanter avenues of club work, art OR literature. ❖ Thousands of other women found doors of opportunities & didn't have to learn about the early struggles ❖ “They say they could find time to vote but not to work for the vote.” Men & women waiting to be called are reserves. ➢ These reserves MUST be mobilized. ❖ “Woman suffrage is bound to come” ❖ The cruel hostility for years was arranged against their cause, had accustomed suffragists to the idea of indefinite postponement BUT ultimate victory. ❖ Set the pace of an educational campaign The “Woman’s Hour has struck” ➢ Sets the pace of a crusade ➢ Truly says “awake, arise, my sister, let your hearts be filled w/ joy, -- the time of victory is here. Onward March” - Carrie Chapman Catt ❖ What their great movement needs now is a “mobilization of spirit” -- the overjoyed spirit of victory. Page 10 ❖ Catt calls for all women of America to rise up! ❖ Women in schools, counting houses, shops, on farms, in homes w/ babies breastfeeding them & women engaged in public careers will hear. ❖ Women are NOT cowards nor slackers ❖ Women only wait for the eruption call to learn that the “final battle is on”