June 28 Sunday – The Daily Memphis Avalanche, p. 1, ran “Mark Twain on Female Suffrage.”

Mark Twain on Female Suffrage.

     “Mark Twain’ writes to his “Cousin Jennie” on the subject of “Female Suffrage,” as follows:

     There is one insuperable obstacle in the way of female suffrage, Jennie. I approach the subject with fear and trembling, but it must out. A woman would never vote, because she would have to tell her age at the polls. And even if she did dare to vote once or twice when she was just of age, you know what dire results would flow from “putting this and that together” in after times. For instance, in an unguarded moment, Miss A. says she voted for Mr. Smith. Her auditor, who knows that it is seven years since Smith ran for anything, easily ciphers but that she is at least seven years over age, instead of the young pullet she has been making herself out to be. No, Jennie, this new fashion of registering the name, age, residence, and occupation of every voter, is a fatal bar to female suffrage.

     Women will never be permitted to vote or hold office, Jennie, and it is a lucky thing for me and many other men that such is the decree of fate. Because, you see, there are some few measures that would bring out their entire voting strength, in spite of their antipathy to making themselves conspicuous; and there being vastly more women than men in this State, they would trot these measures through the Legislature with a velocity that would be appalling. For instance, they would enact:

     1. That all men should be home by ten p.m. without fail.

     2. That married men should bestow considerable attention on their wives.

     3. That it should be a hanging offense to sell whisky in saloons, and that fine and disenfranchisement should follow drinking in such places.

     4. That the smoking of cigars to excess should be forbidden, and the smoking of pipes utterly abolished.

     5. That the wife should have a little property of her own, when she married a man who hadn’t any.

 Jennie, such tyranny as this we could never stand; our free souls could never endure such degrading thraldom. Women, go your way! Seek not to beguile us of our imperial privileges. Content yourselves with your little feminine trifles—your babies, your benevolent societies and your knitting—and let your natural bosses do the voting. Stand back; you will be wanting to go to war next. We will let you teach school as much as you want to, and we will pay you half wages for it, too; but beware! We don’t want you to crowd us too much.

     If I get time, cousin Jennie, I will furnish you with a picture of a female legislator that will distress you—I know it will, because you cannot disguise from me the fact that you are no more in favor of female suffrage, really, that I am.          MARK TWAIN.

Note: Annie Moffett Webster offered that “Cousin Jenny” was a stranger who had written to Twain; see Mar. 12, 13 entry.