PRESS BULLETIN

IN NATIONAL POLITICS NOW

That woman suffrage is no longer an isolated reform movement or even a state movement but has entered the great arena of national politics is evident from the action of the Progressive Republican party in Chicago this week and the attitude of those prominent in the convention.

In his initial speech outlining the work before the new party, Mr. Roosevelt said:

"Workingwomen have the same need to combine for protection that workingmen have; the ballot is as necessary for one class as for the other; we do not believe that with the two sexes there is identity of function; but we do believe that there should be equality of right; and therefore we favor woman suffrage."

Senator Beveridge's keynote speech alluded several times to the interests of women and contained this paragraph concerning votes for women:

"Because women, as much as men, are a part of our economic and social life, women, as much as men, should have the voting power to solve all economic and social problems. Votes for women are theirs as a matter of natural right alone; votes for women should be theirs as a matter of political wisdom also. As wage earners, they should help to solve the labor problem; as property owners they should help to solve the tax problem; as wives and mothers they should help to solve all the problems that concern the home. And that means all national problems; for the nation abides at the fireside."

The platform adopted by the convention declared definitely for woman suffrage.

A dozen women attended the convention as delegates and there were almost as many women as men in the galleries. Jane Addams, a delegate from Illinois, seconded the nomination of Mr. Roosevelt. All through the convention women were treated with the utmost respect and the warmest cordiality.

Even the people who do not approve of Mr. Roosevelt admit his wonderful faculty of foreseeing public opinion. Many public men of the day seem to have utterly failed to catch the significance of the woman suffrage movement. Mr. Roosevelt's prescience will no doubt add greatly to the momentum of the Progressive movement and the vote which he will receive in November.

One million women will vote for president in this country this fall. If the regular Republican and Democratic parties had not been so unseeing they might have secured a larger part of this vote than will now be given them.

COME IN AND HELP

Barely three months remain of the woman suffrage campaign. Here are some of the things the Political Equality League plans to do during that time: Supply 88 periodicals published in Wisconsin, not including daily or weekly papers, with propaganda; find speakers for 75 county fairs during September and October; arrange booths at said 75 fairs; edit two daily papers some day during September; give two benefits for the purpose of raising money; sell 500 washing machines and turn at least $1,000 into the treasury; get all ward and precinct organizations under way; if possible put on suffrage plays at some theatre.

This outline does not include the regular routine of preparing and mailing the weekly bulletin to all the newspapers in Wisconsin, the daily bulletin to the daily papers, the answering of hundreds of letters daily arranging meetings, sending out literature, begging automobiles for use of speakers and keeping accounts--for the most part paying bills from a long-suffering and depleted treasury.

For all this work, we need workers and we need money. We have not enough of either. Come and help us, all ye who believe in woman suffrage. It isn't a matter of convenience or inclination. It's a matter of plain duty. Here is a great cause in which you are interested and which has great need of your help. Don't delay. Volunteer now. Give your money. Give your work. Either state or county organization will be pleased to hear from you, and to see you.

IN WILD WEST SHOW

The Wild West show, when it parades Green Bay, will show some suffrage feature in the parade if the Brown County League can secure it. Brown county will soon have another auto tour and Dr. Anna Shaw, president of the national federation, may come to Green Bay.

CRITICISES GENERAL FEDERATION

Wisconsin club women who think the General Federation missed an opportunity for usefulness when it refused to endorse woman suffrage will be interested to learn that at least one California club has passed a protest "against the business of the General Federation of Women's Clubs being so managed that the majority is not allowed opportunity for full and free discussion of any resolution that it may desire to consider." This club was the Friday Morning club of Los Angeles, one of the influential clubs of the state, whose president is Mrs. David C. McCan, formerly Mrs. George H. Yenowine, of Milwaukee. The protest was passed after the presentation of a vigorous paper criticising the behavior of the Federation in not allowing suffrage to be discussed.

WOMEN TAX PAYERS IN MONROE

In 1910 the assessed valuation of the city of Monroe was $3,829,190, with a total tax of $77,349.63.

Women of the city, widowed, married and single, were assessed as follows:

On real estate	$432,847.00
On personal property	85,035.00
On bank stock	91,590.00
Special assessments, sewers, etc.	100.00
Total	$609,572.00

On this assessment Monroe women paid a tax of $13,410.

Thus Monroe women paid between one-fifth and one-sixth of the whole tax of that city. But not one of them had voice either in regard to the collection of the expenditure of that tax.

IN LITTLE

If we were only sure that women want to vote, protest the weak hearted. Apply that principle to the people in general and there will never be any progress. If no improvement had ever been made in their condition, except that for which a majority clamored, women would still be as they were when they dwelt in caves.

The house-mother, happy and well taken care of, is apt to think that it is unnecessary to vote. Having everything that she wants, she forgets that millions of other women fall of many things that they want and ought to have, things which the vote will help in securing for them.

Why talk as if woman suffrage were a dangerous experiment. Has it not been fairly tried in this country for forty years?

Women won't vote if they have the chance, is a common argument against giving votes to women. It may be a good argument, but statistics in the western states, where women may vote, prove positively that women do vote as generally as men.

Women don't vote generally in school matters--therefore they should not vote in general affairs, say the undiscerning. If men could vote only for school officers, how many of them could be relied upon to go to the polls--especially when other people were voting on great and national affairs?

   Dr. Anna Blount is again coming to Wisconsin to speak and will begin her trip this time with a Chautauqua address at Blue River, August 22.