ence might seem to have been the rise in this country of th pressionistic movement which takenly contemned. Many of including some of our bes gladly and profitably derived f Monet the aid which he disda their interest in problems of li tuted, in a sense, a detail speaking, it was from George 1 they took over the point of view of mind, typical of American art in the last thirty years and the old methods of the Hud school are no longer valid, if th magic" that now holds sway is cerned in utter freedom with lasting truths of light and air if our painters and their publ the intimacies of nature in a sympathy and understanding, i ly because Inness found the more beautiful world. He ac us to a different kind of landsc he established it as the right liberated us from an inadequa tion and gave us a new standar by. Only a man of genius cou done it. ht seem to have been curtailed by In this country of that very instic movement which he so misontemned. Many of his juniors - some of our best painters d profitably derived from Claude e aid which he disdained. Br rest in problems of light consti= a sense, a detail. Broadr it was from George Inness that over the point of view, the habi typical of American landscape last thirty years and more. E methods of the Hudson Rive no longer valid, if the "natur at now holds sway is one conutter freedom with the everths of light and air and cour nters and their public expe cies of nature in a spirit f and understanding, it is large Inness found the key to: tiful world. He accustome erent kind of landscape, a ed it as the right one. H ; from an inadequate tra ve us a new standard to live man of genius could have VOL. LXXVII MAY, 1925 N Some American Women and the Vo BY KATHARINE FULLERTON GEROULD URPRISE has often the large. But, humanly speaking, other, more highly individualized gi is even more interesting. been expressed, during the last few years, at the apparent reluctance of large numbers of women to avail themselves of the right conferred upon them by the duly ratified Nineteenth Amendment. Miss Butler, in an interesting article in SCRIBNER'S for last November, has reported on the situation in New York State. But even the physical obstacles to voting encountered by the farmer's wife, and the moral obstacles encountered by the woman of alien race in the big industrial towns, do not cover the whole case. Though the stress seems to lie on those two groups, Miss Butler herself finds a residuum of reluctance or indifference that cannot be explained either by distance from the polls or by the difficulty of adaptation to American conditions. A lot of intelligent and civilized American women either do not vote at all or vote under protest and not very carefully. From the point of view of the political worker, officially occupied with "getting out the vote," the larger non-voting blocs are presumably more important than the smaller ones. But the person with no political affiliations or interests is more preoccupied with determining the significance of the vote to the women of her own acquaintance, her own group: women who are typical of the historic American stock, with its virtues and vices, its peculiar measure of civilization. The polit In point of fact, if you study the toral statistics of the whole country, will find that the women's voting re competes pretty well with the me The difference between those vast to may seem large in round numbers, but actual per cent is not so much lower as would expect. In the East, however, non-voters of the two sexes appear to of somewhat different classes. The voting woman ranks higher in qua than the non-voting male. Certainly cannot say that the best women do vote; but I think you can say that the difference to the vote is largest (pro tionally speaking) among intelligent civilized women. The reasons for this manifold, and have not all been sta tiresomely often. Men and women of same class do not yet take the same a tude to the ballot. I have found, in my life, very few men who objected to the suffrage on principle, or who had a philosophic for their objections. Usually their a ments against it have been purely p tical. One of the most ardent ant fragists I have ever known always use preface her plea with the statement: course, women have as much right to as men." Even the men who objec objected on grounds not of right wrong, but of political expediency. M of the women who wanted the wanted it. I think. rather as a decora frage speech, that she was not foolish enough to suppose that women were any better than men, or any more likely, in the mass, to purify politics. (I do not know what she thinks now; that was long ago, before Bull Moose days.) But the vote is a decoration only when you are pining for it. When you once have it, it is an implement or nothing. How are we using it? We shall have to confess, I think, that a lot of us regard it as we regard those patented labor-saving devices that are more nuisance than help. The vote having been thrust on me, my first instinct was to refuse to use it. My poor arguments were overruled. I pleaded that an unintelligent vote was a wicked vote; that I was a busy woman and could not read the political news daily in detail (a deep distaste complements my lack of leisure); that my social life, such as it is, offered me no opportunities of getting political "dope," since the women of my acquaintance are quite as politically uninformed as I am. I pointed out that, as I was unable to disprove women's right to political independence, my sense of humor forbade me merely to echo my husband, without taking any thought in the matter myself. If I have a right to the vote, I have also a duty to it. Yet I cannot forget what happened to me in 1923. Only local candidates-State, county, borough were to be voted on. Nothing seemed very important, and I decided to begin, at this auspicious moment, a lifelong career of staying away from the polls. Even my husband-who thinks that, since I may vote, I ought to vote-did not make an issue of it that year. Late in the afternoon, as I was walking home, I was overtaken by a neighbor who was a candidate for the borough council. He offered me a lift, and after I got into the car, his wife asked me if I had yet voted. I confessed that I had not. "If I had been voting this year, of course I should have voted for your husband," I said; which was perfectly true, as I believed him to be the best candidate in either party. "You must vote," she said. "We'll run you right back to the polls and then bring you home." In a moment more I was at the polling-place. As I got out of the car, I realized that there were all sorts of can fices, and that I knew nothi of them except the local or pecting to vote, I had not sample ballot marked by my turned to my friend. "I don' to vote for except you," I p haven't informed myself al these candidates." "That' he replied; "you'll be perfec year, voting the straight part went into the booth and ma against the proper number the party column. I do not think that is the v Yet I think that most of t know, if they vote at all, vo casually and dependently as of the women I know, that their husbands vote; and if the found out how from a husband found out how from a father, or a friend. I do not detect in of my acquaintance any tend interested in the way otherw voting, any tendency to brin politics. I am of course aware are a number of women in th who are trying to perpetuate th tilities and tactics of the suffra suffragettes. But I doubt if the very far. Class consciousness i thing to inject into politics; sex ness is not. Men and women natural enemies in the politi Good citizenship is sexless. Th ment that is really good for really good for females. The on who will deny it are the people w special privileges, unfair advanta one sex or the other. Most fair women, I think, feel this, vaguel explicitly. They know that sex nism is no basis on which to buil state. They feel that the kind lation which is advertised as b pecially women's business to put is, properly speaking, the peculi cern neither of one party nor of o Therefore they tend, I think, to trustful of anything like a "w party," and of leaders who plead "women's vote." I am not unawa such organizations as Miss Butler tions-"women's clubs, missiona cieties, the Woman's Christian Te |