X.
If it is indeed true that the work of the world must be divided, and that nature, experience, and a sane philosophy unite in showing that the labor of government is part of man's proper share, it is hardly needful to consider any such minor arguments as that if women could vote " there would be no more wars." But I may say that most of them are on a par with this one as regards any basis of demonstrated or probable truth.
Does the history of the female sovereigns of Europe, or of India, show that women hate war more than men, or does it show that when their emotions are excited they are apt to be more recklessly bellicose than men? How was it with the women of France in the days of the great Revolution? And do recent Instances differ from those of earlier date? Was not the terrible Franco-German war of 1870 called by the French empress "my war"? Was it not recognized as such by the French people? Do not the investigations of historians and memoir- writers show it to have been such? And which were recognized as the most bitter opponents of the Union in our Southern States during the War of the Rebellion and long after its close — the women or the men?
But the worst of all the fallacies now being used as persuasive arguments is the declaration that if American working-women could vote their wages would be equalized with men's. Those who promise this do not give their reasons, and they could not base them upon past facts with regard to rises in the value of men's labor. Even to-day women are paid much more nearly the same as men for really equal work than the makers of this promise would have us believe. But often what is called equal work shows some inequality, if not in the perfection of its performance then in the probability that the worker will continue permanently at her task. Although certain agitators have declared that the "law of supply and demand" is a foolish fetish, it nevertheless affects the pay of every laboring individual in the world. Amid social and commercial conditions like ours, the slightest inequality in working power, the slightest difference in the relations of a supply to a demand, tell in financial results; and no laws can possibly obviate this fact. Not legislation but organization has raised the wages of men during the past two generations. And the most successful result of labor-organization — the famous strike of the dock-laborers in London a few years ago — was accomplished by men a very small proportion of whom had votes.