“Suffrage Worker Appeals for Ballot,” Oregon Journal, October 15, 1912, 2.
-Transcription
SUFFRAGE WORKER
APPEALS FOR BALLOTMrs. Olive Stott Gabriel, associate editor of the Woman Lawyer’s Journal of New York city, addressed the Stenographers’ Equal Suffrage club last evening at suffrage headquarters in the Selling building. Mrs. Gabriel is a woman of brilliant mind, strong personality and wide knowledge of matters social and politic. She is a native daughter of Oregon, and is indefatigable in her efforts to bring about equal suffrage. Mrs. Gabriel said in part:
“I want first to remind you of the value of cooperation among women as well as among men. Note the minimum number of men in the labor unions of today, yet see what they have accomplished by organized effort in enacting laws for protection, both in regard to safety of machinery, wages, sanitation, etc. Women, not having the ballot, have no force to use in presenting a petition to remedy conditions under which they labor. The status of woman is due to the prejudice that has grown out of her position under the common law, which prevails with but slight changes in all the states.
“Whatever liberty women now possess is held only by courtesy, as the power to remove any of the enabling statutes is wholly within the voters’ power. In only 14 states in the Union do women hold join guardianship in the persons of their children. This does not give them a voice in the management of their property. In New York city there are 100,000 school children that are on half time, while in Boston, where women vote on school questions and in Chicago, where Ella Flagg Young is school superintendent, a seat is provided for every child. These are a few of the advantages which will accrue from suffrage. The ballot is a responsibility, but it is also a privilege, and one which I feel sure the women of Oregon are anxious to accept.”