 and welcome to today's The Power of the Vote reading brought to you by the Ray Howard Library Shoreline Community College. My name is Meredith. I am one of the reference and instruction librarians here at Shoreline. And today we are going to be reading a few of Alice Durer-Miller's poems from a collection called Women Are People. Miller was an activist in the suffrage movement. She had a lot of stuff published in various publications and Women Are People is a collection of some of her columns from the New York Tribune. So we're going to be reading a few poems and it's going to be fun. Hope you stick around with us. We should have, if it's working, the chat window going so feel free to chat with your fellow viewers about anything you think of or that these poems make you think of. Onto the poems. The first poem we are going to read is called Selfish Creatures and a majority of her poems kind of start with a little quote or news clipping or something that kind of spurred on this poem. So the little intro bit to this is a quote from an anti-suffrage leaflet and the quote is in this age of discontent hundreds of thousands of girls who have no necessity to support themselves leave home in order to win pin money. And here's the poem. I stopped to ask a scrubbleman why labor like a man you cannot feed your children well there must be some who can. She said I merely work because I need a feather fan. I went to a steam laundry and asked with smile polite. Ladies why will you work so late? They said we think it right to buy our opera cloaks ourselves and so we work at night. Observe how nagging women are their work is just a faint to make man feel inadequate and selfish which he ain't. True womanhood would rather starve and starve without complaint. This next poem is called The Demise of Shilvery and it's introduced with the quote from a letter from the president of the Hudson River Association opposed to women's suffrage and the quote says would it not be a little more just to state that for her taxes this woman receives police protection fire protection pure food inspection and ash and garbage removed and the poem begins the courteous policeman on my beat who always helps me cross the crowded street had I the ballot as I understand would throw me under the horse's feet the garbage man whose wise efficient plan is daily to remove my garbage can would pass me by all coldness and neglect if he should catch me voting like a man but one there is who will not change I know however far stray we women go who questions not of women's fear or charm the tax collector never answers no. This next poem is called The Code and it starts with a quote from an anti-suffrage speech and the quote says we women are not supposed to be humorous I know and the poem goes like this ladies true to the tradition of ivy in the oak never make the dark admission that you see a joke laugh and smile for that's beguiling if the teeth are good but not knowing why you're smiling that's true womanhood humor must remain a stranger to the loving female mind if we would avoid all danger of all thought unkind chivalry would go to Hades very very quickly then men may laugh at us poor ladies but we must not at men and our next poem is called the Kansas is out of debt and the quote that comes at the beginning of this poem is from a press clipping that says the state of Kansas is out of debt so pretty pretty straightforward there and the poem begins oh when the anti-speakers stern intense declares that women have no business sense describes the wild taxation we shall pay when women flighty woman has her way paints the financial smashes the failures and crashes that must ensue when woman takes hand in governing the land don't be annoyed just smile and say but yet Kansas is out of debt Kansas is out of debt Kansas where women vote whereas to date New York the proud the rich the empire state with its magnificently male finance and business interests have that have looked a scans on women taking any part in matters other than the heart New York has not from recent information met every obligation New York which prudently will only let the sex of business experts vote and yet New York's not out of debt this poem called botheration starts with a little quote from chairman Webb at the suffrage hearing in Washington and chairman Webb says why do you come here and bother us and the poem is called botheration girls girls the worst has happened our cause is at its ebb how could you go and do it you've bothered mr. Webb you came and asked for freedom as law does not forbid not thinking it might bother him and yet it seems it did oh can it be my sisters my sisters can't be you did not think of mr. Webb when asking to be free you did not put his comfort before your cause how strange but now you know the way he feels I hope we'll have a change send word to far Australia and let New Zealand known and Oregon and Sweden Finland and Idaho make all the nations grasp it from Sitka to El Teb we never mentioned suffrage now it bothers mr. Webb this poem starts with a headline that says the debutants are entertained and the poem is called the spell the debutants are entertained though Europe sink and smoke and blood and every hope of womanhood is they're endangered twisted stained the debutants are entertained the debutants are entertained though many women young as they in this free country day by day are underfed and over strained the debutants are entertained oh lovely creatures young and kind how long how long are you rebel against this tyranny this spell that dims the mirror of your mind and keeps you debutants and blind this next poem is one of my favorites and starts with a quote from the evening post april 15th 1916 and the quote says the great constructive piece of legislation the Thompson bill defining an adult scallop passed the senate today without one dissenting vote and this is the scallops campaign song oh sister scallops rejoice tyranny ends at last without a dissenting voice the scallop bill has passed never again the briny waters near shore shall a scallop timid and tiny tremble is here too for tremble and start and wake to the sound of scoop and rake the terrible means men take now never more never more in quiet scallop-like manner we worked for our bill never a ball or banner nor nagging nor talk until the senate holy at leisure made it their pride and pleasure to pass the scallops measure the better scallops will then perish party passion when it was understood that scallops in good old fashion were not too clever for food for the power of scallops as much and men will yield at a touch of scallops acting as such true to their scallop hood our next poem is another one of my favorites for completely different reason than the scallops campaign song it starts with a quote from red a child door in the new york evening mail which says no woman in the state has been insulted beaten choked or murdered at the polls since the vote has been bestowed on the women of illinois all these things have happened to women in their own houses the poem is called the safest place go out to the polls my mary for a girl is safer there than she is in any other place on earth but if you stay home beware it's dangerous up on a ladder dangerous lighting a stove when aunt is hanging the clothesline out five stories down she dove it's a risky place my mary though both of us hold it dear but more women die at home you know than anywhere else each year so don't stay at home my darling get used to your vote in youth for no one had ever heard of a girl who died in the polling booth our next poem feels rather appropriate for the time in which we are currently living um it doesn't say where the quote at the beginning comes from but the quote says the traveling men of new york are asking for legislation which will enable them to vote that is to say to enable them to register although absent from their residents poem is indirect influence traveling men what is the matter why this unrest and alarm can't you control coax or flatter can't you depend on your charm how can you say even in play you need a ballot to get your own way charm is what statesman kowtow to charm is the rise in their fall votes they would never allow to alter their conduct at all charm is your dower cling to that power vote is the pleasure that fades in an hour our next poem starts with a quote from hg wells um from something called what is coming um and the quote starts there can be no question that the behavior of the great mass of women in great britain has not simply exceeded expectation but hope and there can be as little doubt that the suffrage question in spite of the self-advertising violence of its extravagant section did contribute very materially to build up the confidence the willingness to undertake responsibility and face hardship that has been so abundantly displayed by every class of women at every sort of occupation they have been found efficient beyond precedent and intelligent beyond precedent there is scarcely a point where women haven't having been given a chance have not more than made good these women have won the vote the poem is called what is coming oh mr wells your words sound very nice yet if efficiency and sacrifice could win the vote for women don't you know we would have won it many years ago in every battle that ever fought in war or industry or law or thought men have received with wondering delight the help their women gave them in the fight but after war there is no other debt that men it seems so easily forget therefore i fear the englishmen will say in the old scornful antebellum way women are kind and good hardworking too but women voting that will hardly do besides they don't want the vote one hears and when they cry we do he'll stop his ears we have arrived at our last poem for this afternoon it doesn't have a quote to introduce at this time but it is called new year's resolutions for suffragists let us resolve to remember one that we are working for suffrage because of our own convictions on the subject and not as a personal favor to the chairman of some committee two that no one else is ideally fitted to do the job assigned to us so we might as well attend to it ourselves three that no one else will suffer any less in doing it than we do they may talk less about their suffering four that as someday we shall undoubtedly say yes i was one of the women who worked hard for suffrage we might as well work hard five that it is unnecessary to be either apologetic or antagonistic about the cause but if we must be one or the other the latter is preferable six that the only way to get rest from suffrage work is to get suffrage and that concludes our reading for today thank you so much for joining us and sticking with us this afternoon we will have another read reading commemorating suffrage at the same time next week so be sure to tune in we are going to let this video just kind of run for a little bit longer so to give you an opportunity to use the chat window over to the side there if you haven't been doing that already just to talk about any these sort of feelings or thoughts that these poems brought up in your brain today again thank you so much we so appreciate you being here if you have any questions about these readings or just were to find resources about suffrage please contact us at the library at library at shoreline.edu and we'd be happy to help you find something to expand your knowledge