Among the better class of opponents of woman suffrage, there is a growing tendency to drop the old argument that women have not intelligence enough to vote, and to base opposition mainly on the “division of labor”.

We are told the progress of civilization is marked by a growing division of labor and specialization of industry; that it is in accordance with this to have men take charge of the political work and women of the domestic work; and that to admit women to the ballot would be a return toward barbarism.

It is true that the progress of civilization has been marked by a growing division of labor between man and man, and between women and woman, but not between men and women. Thus in the early days, every man cut down trees and built his own house, raised animals and killed them for meat; and himself cured their hides. Now this work is divided up between the carpenter, the butcher and the tanner. In the old days, every house-wife spun and wove cloth, dyed it, and made it up into garments for her family, and also made butter and cheese, soap and candies. Now this work is divided up 002among a dozen women and men. The division of labor between individuals has been constantly increasing, but not the division of labor between the sexes. There the trend of things has been just the other way.

A hundred years ago, hardly any occupations were open to women except house work and sewing. Now the census of 1900 shows that out of the hundreds of trades and professions followed by men, the only ones in which no women are found are the work of soldiers and sailors, and telegraph and telephone linemen. Nothing could be more untrue than to say that the progress of civilization is marked by a more and more rigid division of labor between the sexes.

Some people admit that the trend of the times has been to open more employments to women, but declare that it is a calamity for women to engage in wage-earning occupations outside their homes; and, by an odd confusion of ideas, they make this an argument against equal suffrage. But this is to mix up a political question with a purely economic one. Whether it is right for a woman to vote is one thing; whether it is wise for her to work for money outside her home is quite another. There is no evidence that more women are wage-earners outside their homes in the States where women vote than in States where they do not. Wyoming has had full woman suffrage ever since 1869; yet, according to the census of 1900, Wyoming has the smallest proportion of unmarried women to its population of any State in the Union, and, presumably, the smallest proportion of women who are obliged to engage in wage-earning occupations outside their homes. On the other hand, 003Massachusetts and New York, where women do not vote, have an enormous number of unmarried women wage-earners.

The “specialization of industry” has no bearing on the question. Voting is not an industry. The progress of civilization has not been to restrict the suffrage more and more narrowly, but to extend it to one class after another. The most advanced nations today are not those where all political power is concentrated in the hands of a single despot, but those in which it is most widely shared among the people. And the best government is found where the largest number of the people actively perform their political duties, not where they neglect to vote and leave public affairs to be managed by a small class of “professional politicians.”