A Parody On Comin' Thro' The Rye

by Josephine K. Henry

If a lad of twenty summers,
May the ballot ply,
Pardoned convicts; drunkards, bummers.
Tell me why not I?
How is John, just out of college,
More for voting trained,
Than Grandmama, John owes what knowledge,
Outside of foot-ball gained?

If the forty-six enfranchise,
As you know they do,
Vice in nearly all its branches,
Why not women too?
Patrick’s vote his worth enhances,
Ne’er a vote have I,
Yet if I’d ask an alien’s chances,
Half the men would cry.

Legislators in convention,
In a certain state,
Say that Pat with his “intintion,”
May but six months wait;
Then he may take part in all elections,
E’re the year be gone,
And help exclude all complexions,
Women native born.

If a woman taxes paying,
In a certain town,
In its council asks a saying,
Need a body frown?
She may on the tax receiver,
Any day call round,
But at the polls to help relieve her,
She never must be found,

If our husbands, sons, and brothers,
To the circus went,
Take their sweethearts, wives and mothers,
If to the polls we went,
Why so dreadful should they find us?
Really I can’t see,
Such talk I’m sure is but to blind us,
Don’t you agree with me?

Rowdies, drunkards and pickpockets
At the circus door,
Elbow women, steal their lockets,
At the polls could they do more?
To the polls Tom, Dick and Harry
Hie [hide?] themselves away,
To tax the women votes they carry
On election day.

If it be true that Equal Rights
Is true Democracy,
To tax the women without votes
is downright tyranny,
Then list ye now to Freedom’s notes,
Sure as this planet rolls,
American women with their votes
Are comin’ to the polls.


CONCLUSION

For the thing that’s right, you see,
is the thing that’s bound to be,
And it’s better He and She
should pull together
So we may as well prepare
for She’s surely “getting there”
Over prejudice, tradition, wind and weather.