Howard Mortman is the sort of person who reads old copies of the Congressional Record for fun. Oh, and for work. The McLean, Va., resident is the communications director at C-SPAN, so it kind of makes sense.
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On Wednesday, Howard was curious about what happened in Congress on Jan. 12, 1915, the day the U.S. House voted against giving women the right to vote, 204-174.
Howard pointed me to the curious oration of Rep. Stanley E. Bowdle, a Democrat from Ohio’s 1st District.
“I approach this subject with some trepidation and emotion,” Bowdle began. “My lovely, loyal wife, who charitably puts up with much in me, believes in suffrage for women, and a beautiful, devoted sister, living in Canton, Ohio, believes in it.”
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It wasn’t clear where Bowdle was going with this. Congressmen had been speechifying all day on both sides of the issue, supporting their arguments with passages from the Bible, the Constitution, from ancient Greece and Rome and from French philosophers.
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Bowdle would take a different tack. To determine how fit American women were to vote, the Cincinnati lawyer said he had conducted a survey on the streetcars and streets of Washington. He would be sharing the results with the august chamber.
The entire day’s proceedings make fascinating reading. Debate lasted 10 hours. Some of the speakers were quite eloquent. Many were impassioned. Many were also sexist and racist.
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Rep. Martin Dies of Texas said that among the reasons he opposed giving women the vote was “because it would thrust the ballot into the hands of millions of ignorant negro women of the South and force unsought political burdens upon millions of home makers throughout the land who are at present more profitably employed than in running after politics.”
Even worse, he continued, women who voted would somehow infect men. “I am told that the sexes love opposites, and I am afraid that a race of manly women will call forth a race of womanly men,” Dies said. “Such a race of women would be too stern for the tender offices of motherhood without being ferocious enough for the camp of the Army, and such a race of men would not be fit to fill the vacancy in either place.”
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Colorado’s Harry H. Seldomridge had a very simple reason for woman suffrage: “We should give the ballot to woman because it will add to rather than detract from her usefulness to society and the Nation,” he said.
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Seldomridge pointed out that not only did society expect women to raise their families, it also forced women to compete with men to support those families.
“If the Nation is not willing to provide for her release from this burden,” he said, “she should at least be given the franchise in order that she may use it, as far as possible, as a means to alleviate and remove oppressive conditions of toil and environment.”
Then there was Bowdle, a speaker known for his sense of humor.
“The plight in which I find myself,” he said, “requires that I speak circumspectly — that I weigh my words — for I do not care to wound the feelings of those women with whom my lot has been so happily cast by the Lord’s providence and my own good judgment.”
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Here the Congressional Record reporter inserted: “[Laughter.]”
Bowdle described the research he undertook: calculating how many women read the newspaper in a streetcar.
Said Bowdle: “I selected the Mount Pleasant car, coming in over Connecticut Avenue, a line which at its outer end picks up an intelligent middle class, with a few Congressmen without fortune, and which later picks up the wealthier Senators who live in the expensive apartments bearing signs ‘Servants and tradesmen to the rear.’ ”
Again: “[Laughter and applause.]”
Over eight days the previous May, Bowdle had counted the number of men and women in his streetcar carriage and noted how many were reading a newspaper. By the end of the week, only one of the 99 women he spotted was reading. Of the 116 men, 55 were reading.
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“This does not testify to a magnificent interest in the world’s affairs,” he said.
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Next, Bowdle asked “a bright Jewish newsboy” who sold papers at 14th and Pennsylvania NW — “where all classes ebb and flow” — to keep his own tally. At the end of the week, the boy reported that he had sold 496 papers to men and 59 papers to women.
“Yes, Mr. Speaker,” Bowdle said, “the women of this smart Capital are beautiful; indeed, their beauty is positively disturbing to business, but they are not interested in affairs of state.”
Bowdle said he would be voting against woman suffrage.
Bowdle served just one term in Congress. Back in Ohio, he continued to ride streetcars. On April 6, 1919, he stepped off one in Cincinnati and was struck and killed by an automobile.
Two months later, Congress passed the 19th Amendment.
Read more from John Kelly.