FROM a statement by Mrs. Charles  P. Strong, prominent American anti-suffragist and official in the Massachusetts Association Opposed to the Further Extension of Suffrage to Women, founded in 1895:

We find constantly the evil influence that this first step of suffrage is having on the young women of our day; and, to me, the gist of the whole matter seems summed up in a paragraph from a pamphlet written by Mr. Joseph Pyle:

“With Christianity there came into the world a new example and a new thought. To woman’s whole nature appealed that life of self-sacrifice, of love, and of willing service that has created a new Heaven and a new earth. From the foot of the Cross there arose and went out into the world a womanhood that did not demand, or claim, or threaten, or arrogate; a womanhood renouncing, yielding, loving, and, therefore, conquering. For twenty centuries that has been the law of woman’s life. It is sneered at and rejected today by the clamorous, but it has made of woman what we now find her. You see it in your mothers, your daughters, your wives. Do you wish to have that ideal changed? Woman has become to man not only a companion, but an inspiration. Out of the crucible of the centuries has come what we not only love but adore; before which, in certain hours, we bow with a reverence that links us unconsciously with the Divine. It is Christian civilization that is in the balance.”

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“WE feel that our present duties fill up the whole of our time and abilities, and that they are such as none but ourselves can perform…. Our fathers and brothers love us. Our husbands are our choice and are one with us. Our sons are what we make of them. We are content that they represent us in the corn field, the battlefield and the jury box, and we them in the church, in the school room, at the fireside, and at the cradle. Believing our representation even at the ballot box to be thus more full and impartial than it could possibly be were all women allowed to vote, we do therefore respectfully protest against legislation to establish women’s suffrage in Ohio.”

— Statement of 100 women protesting women’s suffrage, c. 1890, Louvain, Ohio

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“NOW, if the man and the woman exist to multiply and replenish the earth, blessed  to that end by the primal benediction in the morning of the world, and if they are to form homes, out of which shall grow houses, tribes, states and nations; and if, in designing them to that end, God made them essentially diverse the one from the other, establishing distinctions so obvious as to be immediately discerned, and so necessary that they have been maintained by many a law, human and divine, who can imagine that their work should be the same? The distinction, the difference, must run through the entire line of their activity. A man must have his share, a woman hers: the woman was not made to do the man’s work, nor the man that of the woman’s. To see this is wisdom: to maintain it inflexibly is security and peace; to ignore it must end in destruction and unhappiness.”

— Rev. Dr. Morgan Dix, 1827-1908, of the Episcopal Diocese of New York (The Women’s Protest; September, 1913)

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“THE Protestant clergy in this country as a class is not opposing woman suffrage and in some instances appear to even favor the movement. In view of the fact that this must be considered clearly contrary to the teachings and ideals of Christianity, such conditions must impress one as strange, to say the least, yet the cause is not far to seek and will be readily understood through an interview I had with a clergyman friend some time ago.

“On my taking him to task for neglecting his plain duty in not opposing woman suffrage in the face of his oft-emphatically (privately, of course) expressed disapproval of the movement, he replied: ‘Of course, I fully realize my evident and serious short-coming, for there is no doubt in my mind that the ‘craze’, for such I must call it, is directly opposed to the teachings and ideals of the Christian Church, and that whenever or wherever put in practice will eventually lead to its destruction, the end of our family relations and complete demoralization of our system of government. But what can I do in the way of opposition promising successful results?To be sure the great majority of my congregation of both sexes is clearly opposed, but unfortunately there are a few highly aggressive women supporters with a small following of weak and hysterical women and the leaders through their loud-mouthed, objectionable and oftentimes unprincipled tactics have practically terrorized the congregation, and I must confess its pastor also, thereby endeavoring to create the impression that the majority of the congregation was with them, which is surely not the case. (more…)

“GOD made men and women with different intellects for different purposes. He made them for different spheres of work. Man is for government and bread-winning; woman for home-making and child-bearing. I am a little in doubt as to which is the superior, but if pressed to tell I should say that woman’s mission is the more important.”

“Many estimable, good-hearted women, ruled by their sympathy, their sentiment and their good hearts, rather than by their judgment, plunge into politics with the idea that they can right the wrongs of the world.”

“It is not the harm that woman will do in the world of politics, but the harm they will receive in the world of politics, that must be guarded against.”

— Rev. Dr. Alfred G. Mortimer, rector of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church (As reported in The Anti-Suffragist, March, 1910)

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The Catholic Church made no formal, dogmatic pronouncement against women’s suffrage in the early 20th century, but Pope St. Pius X and numerous other members of the hierarchy spoke out against it.

“‘THE theory that demands equal rights between the two sexes must be denied absolutely,’ said Most Rev. S. G. Messmer, Archbishop of the Milwaukee diocese, in his address on ‘Woman’s Rights’ at the opening of the Western Catholic Chautauqua at Spring Bank.

“’It is a mistake to say equal rights instead of similar rights, for woman have certain rights that men have not, and men have certain rights that women have not.

“’In regard to the question of politics, why should women claim equal rights? What does politics mean? Politics means the ruling of nations, and no one who understands this would demand equal rights.’”

—- The Anti-Suffragist, September, 1910

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The Catholic Church made no formal pronouncement against women’s suffrage in the early 20th century, but Pope St. Pius X and numerous other members of the hierarchy spoke out against it.

“ST. Louis, MO, Sept 17, 1912 (The New York Times) — Cardinal [James] Gibbons told 550 men at the City Club luncheon this afternoon that if an historian ever had cause to write the “Decline and Fall of the American Republic”, it would not be due to an invading army, but to the criminal sloth and negligence and the political apostasy of our own citizens.

“Before his address he said in an authorized interview:

“’Female suffrage, in my opinion, would tend toward increasing divorce, which is a social blot on the United States, and is the greatest evil of the day. If woman had equal political rights with men there is a probability that on the slightest provocation she would seek divorce. Given such equality they might overstep the bounds. Women under present conditions are too prone to go to the divorce courts, and political equality might make them more so. It might have the effect of turning their heads. (more…)

The Catholic Church made no formal pronouncement against women’s suffrage in the early 20th century, but Pope St. Pius X and numerous other members of the hierarchy spoke out against it.

FROM the April 1912 issue of The Anti-Suffragist:

Cardinal-designate Falconio, small and energetic, paced nervously up and down the room, his brilliant black eyes sparkling with enthusiasm, as he talked of a topic in which he is passionately interested.

“I have nothing but sentiments of highest esteem for American women,” he began. “American women are extremely well-educated. They are full of energyand it is impossible to over-estimate the great results to be obtained when they exert their influence for the real welfare of society.

“I earnestly hope they will continue to exercise their power for good as they have in the past, but—-“

Here he paused for several moments before beginning his denunciations:

“I do not think it proper for any woman to go outside of the sphere which is assigned to her sex. A good woman should have in mind, above all, the proper care of her family—she is, first of all, a citizen of the home, and if she fulfills adequately the duties of that citizenship, she will have no leisure for outside affairs.In the home should be her heart and soul. There is no higher or holier mission than hers—the care and education of children. Men revere, love and honor the home woman. (more…)

“AFTER creating man, God created woman and determined her mission, namely, that of being man’s companion, helpmeet and consolation … It is a mistake, therefore, to maintain that woman’s rights are the same as man’s. Women in war or parliament are outside their proper sphere and their position. There would be the desperation and ruin of society. Woman, created as man’s companion, must so remain under the power of love and affection, but always under his power. How mistaken, therefore, is that misguided feminism which seeks to correct God’s work. It is like a mechanic trying to correct the signs and movements of the universe. Scripture, and especially the three epistles of St. Paul, emphasizes woman’s dependence on man, her love and assistance, but not her slavery to him.” [emphasis added]

— Pope St. Pius X, 1909 address to a delegation of the Union of Italian Catholic Women

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“THE Rt. Rev. William Croswell Doane, [Episcopalian] Bishop of Albany, in closing his address to the graduating class of St. Agnes’ School, said: ‘I cannot count it necessary and perhaps it is not wise for me to caution you against the loudly shrieked call to give women the right to vote and to be voted for. I am disposed to think that the quiet and decent appeal of a few of the so-called suffragists will be so drowned in the sort of howling-dervish performance of the so-called Suffragettes that they will fail of any effect. At any rate, the argument should be addressed rather to legislators than to you, except so far as one is justified in saying here to you that your womanhood will gain nothing by suffrage, and is losing every day in its dignity and its true influence by the hysterical clamor which is employed in the pursuit of this chimera.'”

—- The Anti-Suffragist, September, 1909

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“WE have the fifty-four-hour law, the minimum wage commission, the prohibition of night-work in manufacturing and mercantile pursuits in Indiana, Nebraska, Massachusetts, New York and Pennsylvania, although women do not vote in these States. An electorate of men has created the best body of remedial and protective legislation for the working woman in response to the need for such legislation made manifest by economic and industrial conditions. It has yet to be shown that women electors as a body in any one double-suffrage State have evolved policies unknown to any other single man-suffrage State and distinct from the normal trend of present-day progress in which men and women play their part. Not until such showing can be made should the ballot be given women as a means of social efficiency.”

— Mrs. A.J. George, The Women’s Protest. April, 1916

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“THE leaders of the suffrage movement cannot and will not deny it, nor have they ever repudiated it. The Socialists, carrying their banners, have taken part in all the big woman suffrage parades and they have been welcomed. At the recent convention of the National Woman Suffrage Association, in Nashville, Tenn., the Socialists of that city filed into the auditorium in which the Sunday session was held and proudly rested their banners against the walls. They remained as guests of these woman suffrage agitators throughout the meeting.

“Socialism is rampant in woman suffrage States, and the Socialist vote was responsible for establishing the “cause” in several of those States. In Nevada, after the recent election, woman suffragists thanked the Socialists for assistance, and the statement was proudly made that every Socialist vote had been cast for woman suffrage. (more…)

“WOMAN suffrage has proved such a failure in the State of Washington that thousands of those who helped to adopt it four years ago would today gladly vote for a return to male suffrage if given the opportunity, according to Judge W. H. Snell of Tacoma, who is staying at the Beaconsfield, Brookline, with his wife and family.

“In an interview yesterday, Judge Snell said:

“’I favored woman suffrage in Washington and voted for it. But in common with thousands of others who looked at the question as an abstract proposition, and hoped for the best, I am so greatly disappointed at the way it has worked out that I would today welcome an opportunity to vote for its withdrawal; and I believe if it were resubmitted to the people of Washington, and every man and woman of voting age were compelled to vote upon it, woman suffrage would be defeated by an overwhelming majority.

“’Many of us were led to support woman suffrage in Washington by the familiar argument that it would tend to purify politics and make for better government. But, after four years of experience, we are forced to conclude that it has done neither. On the contrary, it has simply added to the numbers of those who can be used in the interest of corrupt politics, and has resulted in a hodge-podge of ill-digested, sentimental, socialistic legislation, which is a menace to the welfare of the State.

“’The suffragist theory is that women are as much entitled to the ballot as men, but however this may be considered in the abstract, I am now convinced that we should have done much better for the State of Washington if, instead of extending the franchise to women, we had adopted a more restrictive franchise for men. (more…)

“IN demanding equality, Suffragists assume that there is not and has not been equality. In asserting that ‘there is no sex in mind,’ they really have had to maintain that there is one sex in mind, and that the masculine, to which woman must conform. If man wanted clinching arguments to prove his superiority, could he find another to match this one which suffrage has furnished him? The quaint wit of the Yankee put it neatly when he gave the toast, ‘Woman–once our superior, now our equal!’ Man has said: ‘The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.’ He has also said, with Martin: ‘Whatever may be the customs and laws of a country, the women of it decide the morals.’ The civilization of no nation has risen higher than the carrying out of the religious ideals of its best womanhood. If man has the outward framing of church and state, woman has the framing of the character of man.”

— Helen Kendrick Johnson, in her 1897 book Woman and the Republic: A Survey of the Woman-Suffrage Movement in the United States and a Discussion of the Claims and Arguments of Its Foremost Advocates

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NATIONALISTS who reject Christ the King and his One True Holy Church, which lives now in the wilderness, deserts and byways of the modern world away from apostate Rome and its papal pretenders who are nothing more than worldly celebrities — these nationalists put Christ to death again and will come to nothing, their nations to be reduced to dust like that of the Pharisees:

Many therefore of the Jews, who were come to Mary and Martha, and had seen the things that Jesus did, believed in him.

But some of them went to the Pharisees, and told them the things that Jesus had done. 

The chief priests therefore, and the Pharisees, gathered a council, and said: What do we, for this man doth many miracles? 

If we let him alone so, all will believe in him; and the Romans will come, and take away our place and nation. 

But one of them, named Caiphas, being the high priest that year, said to them: You know nothing. 

Neither do you consider that it is expedient for you that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not.

And this he spoke not of himself: but being the high priest of that year, he prophesied that Jesus should die for the nation. 

And not only for the nation, but to gather together in one the children of God, that were dispersed. 

From that day therefore they devised to put him to death.

— St. John, 11: 45-53

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“LUV’ is the fatuous, non-stop talk of love you see everywhere today. So often, it is just self-centered affection, a pleasure in itself. These words from the 19th-century Spanish priest, Fr. Félix Sardá y Salvany, are a good description of it:

The liberal charity that is fashionable today is, in form, flattery, condescension, and affection; but it is, at its core, the essential contempt for the true goods of man and for the supreme interests of truth and of God.

You don’t love anyone unless you care about his or her supernatural welfare and you can’t achieve that true charity unless you yourself have supernatural faith.

Never has love been so pervasively professed as in our age, and never has it been so truly absent. We live in a loveless time, as was predicted.

“And because iniquity hath abounded, the charity of many shall grow cold.” St. Matthew 24: 12

“Iniquity” is lawlessness, the falling away from God’s laws and truth for a do-as-thou-wilt, indifferentist spirituality devoid of true love of God.

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