Dora Montefiore

Adult Suffrage

To the Editor of “The New Age”

Source: New Age, April 1, 1909, p. 470 (165 words)
Transcription: Ted Crawford
HTML Markup: Brian Reid
Public Domain: Marxists Internet Archive (2007). You may freely copy, distribute, display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet Archive” as your source.


You have misunderstood the last part of my letter. My desire, as an Adult Suffragist, is to see Mr. Asquith pushing all the shivering folk, “Anti’s” included, into the water that they may learn to swim. Those who advocate the Limited Measure desire to see Mr. Asquith push only a few in. If I am permitted to be near at hand when the struggling, splashing democracy is spluttering for breath in the cold water, I would point out that there is a fair and green island of social revolution, much easier and safer for the swimmers than the water-logged skiff of Social Reform to which too many of them are stretching out imploring hands, and vainly trusting that it will grant them salvation.

DORA B. MONTEFIORE

[Our correspondent still continues to confuse the principle of Women’s Enfranchisement with the principle of Adult Suffrage. The difference between them is not quantitative, but qualitative.—Ed. N.A.]