Today -100: February 23, 1910: Of kisses and votes

A letter to the Times from “Anti-Suffragist” points out that Socialists support women’s suffrage, which “only goes to prove what rational and careful persons pointed out long ago – that woman suffrage leads to Socialism. The yellow banner of the suffragists is very apt to turn a bloody red, and their ‘votes for women’ battle cry is a call to the road to ruin.”

But there will be no kisses on the road to ruin. Suffragist Alma Webster-Powell writes in to deny an earlier report in the paper about her proposed tactics: “I have never advocated the exchange of kisses for votes. Indeed, my inclination would be quite different, and instead of sending pretty maids [young women, I presume, rather than domestic servants] to Albany to woo votes with kisses, I would send our strongest women to force justice with horsewhips. Force applied in a noble cause is never undignified”.