Today -100: May 12, 1913: Misdirected sex is a national tragedy

Mexico: Constitutionalists execute 25 Federal soldiers by firing squad.

Woodrow Wilson seems to have moved away from his initial position that California’s proposed Alien Land Act is a matter of state’s racist rights, and asks Gov. Hiram Johnson to delay or veto it (Secretary of State Bryan had suggested a referendum, to delay it until 1914). If Johnson does this, Wilson promises to negotiate with Japan to, I don’t know, get it to stop its citizens buying land in California, like it voluntarily agreed to restrict emigration a few years ago.

Mrs. Arthur Dodge, President of the National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage says that the suffrage movement is “a sex disturbance” born of
“straining after artificial happiness and unnatural enjoyment which indicates an unsettled and an unsatisfactory state of mind.” She says that the costumes of the women in the NYC women’s suffrage parade relied on their sex to appeal to men. If women go out to work on political causes, “the home may be crucified by the ballot”. She links the suffrage movement with immodesty in dress, looseness in conversation and impropriety in dancing. “Misdirected Government is a bad thing, so bad that the men of this country can be relied on to correct it whenever necessary, but misdirected sex is a national tragedy, which, if it is not checked, will degenerate the race.”

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