NATIONAL AMERICAN CONVENTION OF 1906
15
"The introduction of women into industry is working change and disturbance in the domestic and social life of the nation; the decrease in marriage and especially in the birth-rate have been coincident with it." Dr. Shaw's comment was in part:
This is unquestionably true but it is also true that this has been coincident with the wider discovery of gold and the application of steam and electricity to mechanics ... and to draw sweeping and universal conclusions in regard to a matter upon which there is an "almost complete dearth of data" is never wise. Is it true that there is a lower birth-rate among working women than among those of the wealthy class? Are not the effects of over-work and long hours in the household as great as are those of the factory or the office? Is the birth-rate less among women who are engaged in the occupations unknown te women of the past? Or is the decline alike marked among those who are pursuing the ancient occupations but under different conditions?.... If conditions surrounding their employment are such as to make it a "social question of the first importance" it is unfortunate the President had not seen that women should constitute at least a part of any commission authorized to investigate it.
One can not but wish that with his expressed desire for "fair play" and his policy of "a square deal' it had occurred to the President that, if five million American women are employed in gainful occupations, every principle of justice would demand that they should be enfranchised to enable them to secure legislation for their own protection. In all governments a subject class is always at a disadvantage and at the mercy of the ruling class. It matters not whether its name be Empire, Kingdom or Republic, whether the rulers are one or many; and in a democracy there is no way known for any class to protect its interests or to be secure in its most sacred rights except through the power of the ballot....
There had been about this time in high places an outburst of attacks on woman suffrage and predictions as to its dangerous possibilities. Dr. Shaw referred to their authors as Oracles and said: "The great difficulty is that when one Oracle claiming to be divinely inspired has laid down a specific line of conduct which if implicitly followed would lead to the proper development of woman, the happiness of man, the good of the family and the well-being of the State, another Oracle also divinely enlightened lays out a different path by which these ends may be secured, and then another and another until poor women if they should try to follow these self-appointed divine revealers would not only have
