Page:The Woman Socialist - Snowden - 1907.djvu/35

 their enfranchisement, the whole question would be taken out of the realm of politics, cease to be a matter of party strife, and the battle would rage round the greatest moral and spiritual problem that has torn asunder the souls of men since the fall of Adam and the coming of Christ.

But this is not fully realised even by the noblest supporters of the cause of women. The real inwardness of the movement is not appreciated by many. A few excitable women, loud and unwomanly, screaming for votes because they cannot have husbands, is the vulgar idea of the vulgar critics of a movement too great for their shallow minds to comprehend.

The movement for women’s votes means to the intelligent woman agitator something far more than its name implies. She appears to be asking for a vote for her own use. In reality she is demanding the raising of the status of a sex. To be deprived of the vote herself would not cause her a single pang, nor cost her a single tear, though she realises sufficiently its tremendous power and importance. The disgrace is not in the voteless condition of women, but it lies in their powerlessness to