Jasper County Democrat, Volume 15, Number 60, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 October 1912 — ROOSEVELT BAIT FOR SUFFRAGISTS [ARTICLE]

ROOSEVELT BAIT FOR SUFFRAGISTS

Third Term Candidate Was Consistently Their Enemy Till He Needed Their Votes. COULD HAVE CARRIED OHIO. But Big Bull Moose Took to the Vermont Woods—-Noted Woman Exposes His Change of Front. BY ID, HUSTED" HARPER. The Pro; «-.w e party had its first opportunity ; > sunn its loyalty to the woman suffrage p'.ank in its pint fox ;n when the vole was taken m Ohm <m a new coustituti'iii F<rry-t w<> amend meats were on ■!:? l.allm. ai:d :>!1 were adopted except the <>ae toi woman suffrage! Ohio is one of the “bam 1 , er” Progressive states, ::nd Mr. Roosevelt expects to secure its electoral vote. Tn order to do this a plurality o. the electors must be Progressives, and tiiey could therefore have easily ca.rimfl the suffrage amende ent if all the ot hers had voted against it. as the vote 0:2 the constitution was very light, on!;, a few hundred thousand out of more than a million’who were eligible Did he issue any orders to this effect? Did he say to his-followers: “Now. here is our first chance to show the women that we mean business. Of course if we win in November we will give the franchise to all in the United States, but just now we can make good by giving it to those in Ohio, so let every Progressive vote for the woman suffrage amendment?” Did he do this? On the contrary, he completely ignored the matter, although he passed through Ohio the very day of the election.

A few days before, at St. Johnsbury. Vt., Mr. Roosevelt had devoted a large part of his speech to showing how strongly he believed in the ballot for women and how anxious he was for them to get it. The question was not an issue there or likely to be. but it was a vital issue in Ohio, to be settled in four days, and yet,not by spoken or written word did he show to the people of Ohio that he knew of its existence.

Two days after the Progressive party in Ohio permitted the defeat of this amendment its state convention met. If any women were elected delegates the press dispatches failed to mention it, and in the platform a woman suffrage plank was conspicuous by its absence. •’The Progressive party pledges itself to the task of securing equal suffrage to men and women alike.” says its national platform, and Ohio has just given the -first example of the way it apparently means to keep that pledge. In Mr. Roosevelt’s second term the suffragists determined to make every possible effort to secure an indorsement from him. As Miss Susan B. Anthony's most eloquent letters to him received no answer, she went in person to see him in November, 1905. just four months before her death. With all her powers of persuasion she pleaded with him to recommend in his forthcoming message some recognition of woman’s claim to a voice In the government. Laying her hand on his arm, she looked up into his face and said, “I beg of you to be the emancipator of woman as Lincoln was the emancipator of the slave.” He was not resembling Lincoln so much in those days as he is at present, and he remained totally unmoved by her appeals. Scant Courtesy at White House.

Shortly before he left the White House several officers of the National Suffrage association, realizing his great influence on publicivopinion, made one last effort to have him speak a favorable word. He came into the outside lobby of the executive office, required them to state their business before the crowd waiting to see him and would hardly give them a chance to speak, but kept saying. “Go and get another state.” He. shrugged his shoulders and turned on his heel, and then they said, “If we will get up a petition of a million names will that influence you?” “No.” he replied, “not one particle.” That was in 1909. The next year t letter from him was read at an anti suffrage meeting in the Berkeley thea ter, New York, in which he said: “1 am very tepid on woman suffrage.” The cause of Roman's enfranchisement ■ has no more implacable enemy than the Outlook, and Mr. Roosevelt is on the editorial staff. Last February he had in that magazine a ten column article entitled “Woman's Rights.” but the only right considered was that of the suffrage. The article was such an excellent exposition of the attitude of women who do not wish to vote that the Anti-suffrage association ordered copies for distribution. In this article he said again, “In our western states where the suffrage has been granted to women I am unable to see that any great difference has been caused as compared with neighboring states.” ‘ And yet just four months after this publication, when Mr. Roosevelt had definitely decided to make the contest for the presidential nomination, all his scruples about forcing suffrage on a hostile and indifferent majority vanished in thin air because a million and a half already had votes and the colonel wanted them, and he knew they wouldn’t stand for any nonsense about a referendum. '