Alice Duer Miller

“ Work is not work
To our employés, but a merry play;
They do not ask the law's excuse to shirk.
Ah, no, the canning season is at hand,
When summer scents are on the air distilled,
When golden fruits are ripening in the land,
And silvery tins are gaping to be filled.
Now to the cannery with jocund mien
Before the dawn come women, girls and boys,
Whose weekly hours (a hundred and nineteen)
Seem all too short for their industrious joys. ”

“ When men in Congress come to blows at something someone said,
I always notice that it shows their blood is quick and red;
But if two women disagree, with very little noise,
It proves, and this seems strange to me, that women have no poise. ”

“ It's pay your taxes promptly when it comes to the expense.
I went into a factory to earn my daily bread:
Men said: "The home is woman's sphere." "I have no home," I said.
But when the men all marched to war, they cried to wife and maid,
"Oh, never mind about the home, but save the export trade."
For it's women this and women that, and home's the place for you,
But it's patriotic angels when there's outside work to do,
There's outside work to do, my dears, there's outside work to do,
It's patriotic angels when there's outside work to do. ”

“ Because man's place is the armory. Because no really manly man wants to settle any question otherwise than by fighting about it. Because if men should adopt peaceable methods women will no longer look up to them. Because men will lose their charm if they step out of their natural sphere and interest themselves in other matters than feats of arms, uniforms and drums. Because men are too emotional to vote. Their conduct at baseball games and political conventions shows this, while their innate tendency to appeal to force renders them peculiarly unfit for the task of government. ”

“ We hope that the 90,000 sewing machine operatives, the 40,000 saleswomen, the 32,000 laundry operatives, the 20,000 knitting and silk mill girls, the 17,000 women janitors and cleaners, the 12,000 cigar-makers, to say nothing of the 700,000 other women and girls in industry in New York State, will remember when they have drawn off their long gloves and tasted their oysters to tell their dinner partners that they are opposed to woman suffrage because they fear it might take women out of the home. ”

“ ARE WOMEN PEOPLE?
A Consistent Anti to Her Son
("Look at the hazards, the risks, the physical dangers that ladies would be exposed to at the polls."—Anti-suffrage speech.)
You're twenty-one to-day, Willie,
⁠And a danger lurks at the door,
I've known about it always,
⁠But I never spoke before;
When you were only a baby
⁠It seemed so very remote,
But you're twenty-one to-day, Willie,
⁠And old enough to vote.
You must not go to the polls, Willie,
⁠Never go to the polls,
They're dark and dreadful places
⁠Where many lose their souls ”

“ Democracy in America, 1835.
"A government is for the benefit of all the people. We believe that this benefit is best accomplished by popular government because in the long run each class of individuals is apt to secure better provision for themselves through their own voice in government than through the altruistic interest of others, however intelligent or philanthropic."—William H. Taft in Special Message. ”

“ No married woman shall be appointed to any teaching or supervising position in the New York public schools unless her husband is mentally or physically incapacitated to earn a living or has deserted her for a period of not less than one year. ”

“ The New York State Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage is sending out leaflets to its members urging them to "tell every man you meet, your tailor, your postman, your grocer, as well as your dinner partner, that you are opposed to woman suffrage." ”

“ But liberty is not the chief and constant object of their (the American people) desires: equality is their idol; they make rapid and sudden efforts to obtain liberty and if they miss their aim, resign themselves to their disappointment ”

“ Or male or female, young or old,
⁠Are much alike—are much alike.
Feminism
"Mother, what is a Feminist?"
⁠"A Feminist, my daughter,
Is any woman now who cares
To think about her own affairs
⁠As men don't think she oughter." ”

“ O girls, suppose that Mr. Webb
⁠Should alter his decree!
Suppose he were opposed to us—
⁠Opposed to you and me.
What would be left for us to do—
⁠Except to cease to be?
Lines to Mr. Bowdle of Ohio
("The women of this smart capital are beautiful. Their beauty is disturbing to business; their feet are beautiful, their ankles are beautiful, but here I must pause."—Mr. Bowdle's anti-suffrage speech in Congress, January 12, 1915.) ”

“ The Gallant Sex
(A woman engineer has been dismissed by the Board of Education, under their new rule that women shall not attend high pressure boilers, although her work has been satisfactory and she holds a license to attend such boilers from the Police Department.) ”

“ I must beware the perfect square,
⁠Through it young girls have erred:
And when men mention Rule of Three
⁠Pretend I have not heard.
Through Sturm's delightful theorems
⁠Illicit joys assure,
Though permutations and combinations
⁠My woman's heart allure,
I'll never study algebra,
⁠But keep my spirit pure.
Such Nonsense
("Where on earth did the idea come from that the ballot is a boon, a privilege and an honor? From men."—Mrs. Prestonia Mann Martin.)
Who is it thinks the vote some use?
Man. (Man is often such a goose!) ”

“ Each one is counting on my vote to represent her view.
Now what should you think proper for a gentleman to do?
Sonnet
("Three bills known as the Thompson-Bewley cannery bills have been advanced to third reading in the Senate and Assembly at Albany. One permits the canners to work their employés seven days a week, a second allows them to work women after 9 p.m. and a third removes every restriction upon the hours of labor of women and minors."—Zenas L. Potter, former chief cannery investigator for New York State Factory Investigating Commission.) ”

“ With apologies to Lord Tennyson.
("The grant of suffrage to women is repugnant to instincts that strike their roots deep in the order of nature. It runs counter to human reason, it flouts the teachings of experience and the admonitions of common sense."—N.Y. Times, Feb. 7, 1915.) ”

“ For the court has taught us this:
"Home is where the husband is."
The Maiden's Vow
(A speaker at the National Education Association advised girls not to study algebra. Many girls, he said, had lost their souls through this study. The idea has been taken up with enthusiasm.) ”

“ That according to a recent dispatch from London, many hospitals, since the outbreak of hostilities, have asked women to become resident physicians, and public authorities are daily endeavoring to obtain women as assistant medical officers and as school doctors? ”