Military Argument, The.
[Suffrage] Blackwell, Alice Stone. Woman Suffrage Leaflet; The Military Argument. Vol VII, No. 4. Published Bi-Monthly at the Office of the Woman’s Journal. Boston: The Woman’s Journal, 1895.
4to.; one leaf of paper folded lengthwise and printed in black; three horizontal crease marks; slight offsetting to first page.
First edition of this scarce broadside. Besides editing the Woman’s Journal and publishing a syndicated column, The Women’s Column, Blackwell also published suffrage leaflets, such as this one, for facilitated distribution to the public. In this installment, Blackwell provides arguments against the issue that women should not be allowed to vote because they cannot join the military. Her dominant argument is that not all men are able to join the military: lawyers, ministers and editors are frequently found “physically disqualified” for the job; men with legitimate physical limitations cannot fight; and men over the age of forty-five are exempt from military service. She questions the logic of the law when she asks why men are allowed to vote when they are not actively involved in military service. Adding to the numerous flaws of the “Military Argument,” Blackwell points out that men under the age of 21 were not allowed to vote because of their age, but they were expected to fight. She also remarks that women provide America with soldiers to fight, likening the mother’s role to that of a military leader. She quotes her mother, Lucy Stone: “Some woman risk her life whenever a soldier is born into the world. For years she does picket-duty by his cradle. Later on she is his quartermaster, and gathers his rations. And when that boy grows to a man, shall he say to his mother, ‘If you want to vote, you must first go and kill somebody?’ It is a coward’s argument!” She includes other suffragists opinions against “The Military Argument,” coming to the conclusion that, after all, it is one which that does not hold weight.
After her graduation from Boston University in 1881, Blackwell worked as an editor at the Woman’s Journal, the famed suffrage newspaper founded by her mother, Lucy Stone. Following the merger between the American Woman Suffrage Association and the National Woman Suffrage Association in 1890 – resulting in the National American Woman Suffrage Association – the Woman’s Journal and all tangential leaflets, pamphlets and publications were funded by NAWSA.
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