A founder of International Women’s Day on the Socialist campaign for suffrage.

‘Our Suffrage Campaign’ by Meta L. Stern from the New York Call. Vol. 4 No. 317. November 13, 1911.

“Votes for women” is the cry that f rings around the world today.

It is echoed and re-echoed through the length and breadth of our own country, from the conservative New England States to the progressive Pacific Coast, where the cause has just won its latest and greatest victory. It is raised in England, France, and Germany.

It is triumphantly proclaimed in the Scandinavian countries, where women are rapidly being enfranchised It is even heard in the Far East among nations whose women have but recently been aroused from a condition of abject slavery.

Socialists of all countries have taken up the cry, and are making “Votes for women” one of their urgent present-day demands. Why?

Because Socialism stands for true democracy, and there can be no true democracy while half of the human race is maintained in political dependence.

Because Socialism seeks to accomplish the emancipation of the working class, and the working class consists of women as well as men.

Because Socialism means the achievement of a higher social order, and the brains and hearts and hands of both men and women are needed to bring about its ultimate victory.

When woman suffrage was first made a plank in Socialist platforms it was but an abstract declaration of principles. It could not have been more while the woman’s movement was purely a bourgeois movement. while cultured women of the middle classes were almost its sole supporters and the women of the working class remained indifferent, or even hostile. to its appeal. But since a momentous change has swept over all modern countries, since women have come forth by thousands and millions into industry and commerce, into alt the trades and professions, and since these working women themselves have begun to recognize their need of political rights, woman suffrage has ceased to be an academic question, and has become the problem of the hour. This is especially true in the United States. Already six States of the Union have established full equal suffrage for all their citizens, and other States will shortly follow. It is only a question of time, and not of a long time, either, when this whole country will have risen to the height of a true political democracy.

Today, then, every real Socialist is an ardent suffragist; not merely for reasons of abstract justice, but also for reasons of political expediency. The fact that this one plank of our platform is at the very threshold of realization clearly places two duties before the Socialist party of this country: Firstly, to teach the women of the working class their special need of the ballot. Secondly, to teach them how to use the ballot in the interest of their class.

Is the Socialist party performing these duties: It is; and let the women of the country, especially the working women, take notice that it is the only political party that is fighting their battles.

By means of a National Woman’s Committee and many local committees, by the specific efforts of women organizers, by means of the party press, the suffrage cause is being propagated among the women of the working class. By its annual “Woman’s Day” the Socialist party demonstrates to the world its ardent support of woman suffrage. But that is not all. The Socialist party has just inaugurated a new campaign for woman suffrage that promises to be greater, further reaching and more effective than anything previously attempted.

From our National Office in Chicago the country is being flooded with thousands of petition blanks; a national Socialist petition to Congress, asking the enfranchisement of women throughout the United States. There have been similar petitions before. The National Woman Suffrage Association presented one not long ago. But this is the first time in the history of the suffrage movement that a petition for woman suffrage will be submitted by a political party.

Not disfranchised women, but enfranchised men are going to raise. their voices in Congress to demand votes for women through their own representative, the first Socialist Congressman. Victor L. Berger. This voice will be heard not only in Congress, but from the Atlantic to the Pacific Coast. Indeed, throughout the civilized world, and behind the Socialist Congressman men and women will see and hear and feel the power of the growing, flourishing, promising Socialist party that already boasts an enrolled membership of 100,000. The idea is magnificent.

But the idea alone will not suffice. To make the result worthy of the idea every Socialist man and woman in the country must make it his or her special business to make that suffrage petition a rousing success. Since concentration is the secret of all success, we must concentrate on this undertaking for weeks and months to come.

Still the suffrage petition, need not deter us from any other activity, because it can be combined with all other activities. We can attend party meetings and devote ourselves to the party work, and yet always have a petition blank at hand and get those Comrades to sign it who have not yet had an opportunity to do so. We can follow the outline routine of our daily lives and yet collect signatures among our fellow workers, among our butchers and bakers and candlestick makers, among the men and women with whom we come into contact socially.

As the wording of the petition does not refer to any party affiliation, we are not confined to the signatures of Socialists, but we may–in fact, we must–collect signatures among non-Socialists as well. By doing so we will find many excellent opportunities for discussing the aims and principles of Socialism.

So get busy, men and women Comrades! You are given an opportunity as never before to help the suffrage cause and at the same time to serve the interests of your party. Make the most of the opportunity! Now is the time.

The New York Call was the first English-language Socialist daily paper in New York City and the second in the US after the Chicago Daily Socialist. The paper was the center of the Socialist Party and under the influence of Morris Hillquit, Charles Ervin, Julius Gerber, and William Butscher. The paper was opposed to World War One, and, unsurprising given the era’s fluidity, ambivalent on the Russian Revolution even after the expulsion of the SP’s Left Wing. The paper is an invaluable resource for information on the city’s workers movement and history and one of the most important papers in the history of US socialism. The paper ran from 1908 until 1923.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/the-new-york-call/1911/111113-newyorkcall-v04n317.pdf