News
04. July 2006
Mark Twain on Women's Suffrage
I should like to see that whiplash, the ballot, in the hands of women
Who has not read Tom Sawyer and Hucklberry Finn? These stories penned by Samuel Langhorne Clemens (Mark Twain's real name) to this day continue to entertain and enchant people from diverse backgrounds and ages. Twain traveled around the world and he dazzled audiences far and wide with lectures filled with the same humor and spirit found in his writings. But perhaps, least known of the great writer is that he was an outspoken advocate of women's suffrage.
"I should like to see the time come when women shall help to make the laws. I should like to see that whiplash, the ballot, in the hands of women."
In one of his speeches on a Woman's Vote, he says:
"Referring to woman's sphere in life, I'll say that woman is always right. For twenty-five years I've been a woman's rights man.
As for this city's government, I don't want to say much, except that it is a shame -- a shame; but if I should live twenty-five years longer -- and there is no reason why I shouldn't -- I think I'll see women handle the ballot. If women had the ballot to-day, the state of things in this town would not exist.
If all the women in this town had a vote today they would elect a mayor at the next election, and they would rise in their might and change the awful state of things now existing here.
Mark Twain - clearly a man for change!
