Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Ill THE two basic reasons against woman suffrage in the United States are as follows:— First, no electorate has ever existed, or ever can exist, which cannot execute its own laws. Secon'd, no voter has ever claimed, or ever can claim, maintenance from another voter. In the suffrage states these basic laws are for the moment nullified. Concerning the first of these two propositions, the suffragists have alleged, in contradiction, that in England, there is still plural voting; in Sweden, property votes, and one man may cast a hundred votes, if he have enough property; while in Germany, one fourth of the voters elect four-fifths of the Reichstag. But these are all arguments on the anti-suffrage side, and show how impossible such systems would be in a popular representative government like the United States. England and Sweden are monarchies, which are founded upon privileged classes, with a military caste, relatively large naval and military forces, and conscription, although the latter is cleverly disguised in England. In Germany, there can be no legislation without the permission of the Kaiser, who may dissolve the Reichstag at any moment, and who has something like six hundred thousand soldiers to enforce his will. Such electorates would be utterly impossible in the United States. The first principle of our government is, that there shall be no large standing army; and that the people shall govern themselves. To do this, requires an electorate capable of enforcing its own laws. Plural voting, and the voting of property, and one fourth of the electorate electing four-fiths of the legislature are not ideal systems anywhere, but they are totally incompatible with a republican form of government. Under the government of the United States, the normal voter must have t...