It was the munic.i.p.al election day. Judge Thorn was alone in his office.
He sat at his desk, which was piled with papers which he was busy sorting. The door opened and Miss Thorn entered. The judge looked over his shoulder. "You are a bit late," he said.
Jean looked at her watch.
"A trifle," she answered, "but I have always wanted to know what sort of people run our government, and I have been out satisfying my curiosity.
I have been to the polls."
"To the polls," echoed the judge, sharply, whirling around from his desk with a sudden movement that scattered his papers over the floor.
"That is what I said, father. I have been to the polls; and worse, I took an active part in the proceedings by offering the voters "no license" tickets."
"Jean, I must say you have overstepped the bounds of all propriety. You are a young lady who has been allowed a good many privileges, but this is carrying things a little too far," said the judge, almost hotly.
"You were there this morning, I believe, father," Jean answered, coolly.
"I believe I was, but that is no reason you should go. It is no fit place for a decent woman."
"I will admit that, father, and I will go a little further and say it is no fit place for a decent man either."
"Men have grown used to such sights and sounds as are seen and heard around a polling place."
"I suppose so. But if decent men can grow used to such things and escape contamination, I think decent women can do the same; and if decent men cannot I suppose you would advise them to stay away from the polls."
"No; no, indeed. The bad element largely predominates now, and it is the duty of every good citizen to stand by his colors at the ballot box. But we will not discuss the matter further. The fact remains the same. Of course you are of age and can go where you choose, yet I am nevertheless displeased."
"I am sorry that you are displeased, father, and if my doing so will afford you any satisfaction, I will promise you that I will not be caught in such a howling mob again until I can go as an equal of some of the specimens I have seen today."
Jean removed her hat and jabbed the hat pin into it with some asperity.
"I have been grossly insulted," she said.
"Just what I have expected to hear," said her father, "and what can be done when you put yourself in the way of it?"
"I have not the remotest idea how I put myself in the way of it, but you will probably be able to explain to me. Our venerable Uncle Sam is the offending party, and the offense is something like the indignity you would offer me if you gave Vivian all the privileges and love that you should share with me, because she happened to be born with black hair, and then should try to keep me in a state of blissful delusion by telling me I had the sweeter disposition. There would be about as much sense and justice in such a procedure, coming from you, as there is in the way Uncle Sam treats women.
"Here I am, a woman of good moral character, fairly intelligent, I hope, with a good education, denied my right to the ballot because, forsooth, I chanced to be born a woman and am considered too good. To-day"s visit to the polls has reminded me of this insult, tendered by our government to its loyal women.
"By the time I got within two blocks of the polling place, I could hear the general commotion. When I arrived on the scene of action, I found a number of women, of good standing in the community, trying to get men to vote against license. Truly a humiliating business! But as they pressed me, I took a few of the ballots and started into the crowd, while a friendly looking policeman followed me.
"I had hardly made a start when some one crossed my path yelling wildly, "Vote for whisky, boys! Vote for whisky, boys!" He was that half-witted, pumpkin-colored individual that you discharged last winter because he did not know enough to keep the horses" feet clean. Armed with his license ballot, he halted a second before me; then, fluttering the ballot, which he held between his fingers under my nose, he shouted again and again, "Vote for whisky, boys!"
"He gave me a look that told me plainer than a volume of words could have done that he recognized his importance. He knew that he stood head and shoulders above me in Uncle Sam"s estimation, in spite of my learning and morality, because on him had been bestowed a gift denied me.
"I do not like it. I want the right of citizenship. I want to stand on an equality with folks at least that do not know enough to clean a horse"s feet."
"It sounds very foolish, Jean," said her father, "for one of your birth and breeding to be talking thus of an equality with such a character as this."
"It does sound foolish, wonderfully foolish," admitted Jean. "You and I know, father, that I am his superior, but when it comes to a question of the social welfare, that is a very different thing. He well understands that he is a privileged character there. He is a unit of society"s make-up, and where do I come in? Along with the Chinese, the ex-convict and the insane! I do not relish any such sort of company. G.o.d made woman capable of self-government, and expected it of her. Why should she not be on a suffrage equality with man?"
"Why do you want to vote, Jean?" asked the judge, as he would begin with a witness.
"Why do you want to vote, father?" sharply replied the girl.
"Why, my vote is my individuality in the body politic. I could not do without my vote," said the judge, with a slight hesitation.
"Do you not suppose I want some individuality, too?" came the prompt retort.
The judge laughed.
"I have every reason to believe you do," he said.
"Do you not suppose that I would not like to help make the laws that govern me?" asked Jean, taking upon her the role of inquisitor.
"Men can make enough laws for both s.e.xes, I guess," was the reply, uttered in a tone that carried a suspicion of dismissal.
"I guess they can," persisted Jean; "but what sort of laws have they been? Heathenish, some of them!"
"For instance?"
"Laws that have been on our statute books allowing fathers to will away their unborn children; laws allowing the father to appoint guardians of whatever kind or creed over his children, leaving the mother powerless.
And what shall we say about the abominable laws made by men everyone of them, that legalize the sale of drink?"
"Well, a woman is a woman, Jean, and the polls is not a fit place for a woman," and the judge set his lips very firmly.
"That is the a.s.sertion you made at the outset, father. It is no argument, and much as I respect you, I can hardly accept it as final.
You know, father, that if polling places are not fit for decent women, neither are they fit for decent men, and the sooner decent people get around and clean them up, the better it will be for the country. Come, now, if you have a sound, logical reason why women should not vote, bring it on."
"Well," said the judge, "even admitting that the advent of women in politics might have a cleansing effect, women do not want the ballot."
"What women?" demanded Jean.
"The majority of women."
"How do you know they do not?"
"It is to be supposed that if they were clamoring to any great extent for it we would hear of it through the papers."
"What papers? Papers that oppose it to the bitter end? I can show you papers by the dozen and the score that would enlighten you along this line. Women do not ask, but rather they demand, the ballot. But this is begging the question. If it is right for women to have the ballot, it is right, and if it is wrong, it is wrong--that is all there is to it. Now, father, tell me the reasons."
"Why, Jean, have not I given you reasons and have you not overruled them, every one?" was the almost testy answer. "A woman is a woman, and G.o.d never intended her to vote."
Jean laughed merrily.
"What are you laughing at?" demanded her father.
"Why, at you; you are back just where you started. Women must not vote because they are women. If you have nothing better to offer there is no use of going over the grounds again. This makes me think of the time I studied circulating decimals."
The judge joined in Jean"s laugh, and turned again to his papers, as if glad of a diversion.