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28 THE CRISIS ever, every encouragement beyond these general disturbed conditions. The portion of the colored people of the United States who are readers of THE CRISIS is but a small proportion of those who would read it if it were brought to their attention. Persistent pushing, then, of its circulation is going to bring great results. Our great goal of FIFTY THOUSAND subscribers and purchasers is one that we hope to see realized by April 1st, 1916. This is where you come in, Gentle Reader! If you will make yourself this minute a Committee of One to secure ONE new reader for THE CRISIS we will have a circulation which will immediately bring us into the class of large magazines. We can then begin to secure a share of the national advertising; or to put it another way: The great businesses of the United States who are today appealing to every part of the nation can be made to appeal to ten million colored people, to adapt their goods and selling methods to them, and to treat them with the respect that the purchasing public has a right to ask. Beyond and above this matter of self-support comes the question of the magazine itself as a vehicle of thought and an inspirer of ideals and the organ of a great propaganda. It goes without saying that the magazine is far below the ideal and plan of its founder. Its condensation and classification of news and its digest of opinion have been fairly well developed although capable of intensive improvement. Its space, however, for the two great departments of serious essays and literature has been hitherto straitly, almost dishearteningly, curtailed. The magazine needs at least sixteen more pages and it could use a great many in addition. Some decided enlargement will undoubtedly follow within a year and we shall then become a more rounded and complete periodical. In tone and method we have maintained and intend to maintain a certain forceful individuality. We do not expect to suit everybody among our friends at all times. We do expect to be sincere and to maintain our unerring way toward truth. OUR PRIZE CONTEST THEORETICALLY one may look in various ways upon prize contests and undoubtedly this sort of thing has been done pretty thoroughly to death in most lines. Nevertheless, the limited concentrated effort to obtain certain results, stimulated by the offer of such small rewards or distinctions as stimulate generous rivalry without encouraging jealousy or envy,-this sort of effort is one of the most effective weapons which any organization can use. We have not used it much in the National Association and THE CRISIS has never attempted it. This fall, however, we are making a special effort and it would seem that every single effort and it would seem that every single one of the fifty branches and locals of the National Association ought to enter the contest. There is not one of them that could possibly fail to get at least one prize. Many, however, are deterred by the fear that as compared with their neighbors they might not make "a good showing." We sympathize with their modesty but the history of the world proves that the man who fails to try because he is afraid somebody else will do better has never succeeded in setting the world on fire at many places or many times. A strong, unselfish, adequate effort never brings cause for shame when compared with the efforts of others, even though the latter have brought greater results. We have a kind of feeling that those branches who do not enter this contest will in the end EDITORIAL 29 be conscious of much poorer showing than those who enter and bring small but definite results. WOMAN SUFFRAGE HIS month 200,000 Negro voters will be called upon to vote on the questions of giving the right suffrage to women. THE CRISIS sincerely trusts that everyone of them will vote Yes. But THE CRISIS would not have them go to the polls without having considered every side of the question. Intelligence in voting is the only real support of democracy. For this reason we publish with pleasure Dean Kelly Miller's article against woman suffrage. We trust that our readers will give it careful attention and that they will compare it with that marvelous symposium which we had the pleasure to publish in our August number. Meantime, Dean Miller will pardon us for a word in answer to his argument. Briefly put, Mr. Miller believes that the bearing and rearing of the young is a function which makes it practically impossible for women to take any large part in general, industrial and public affairs; that women are weaker than men; that women are adequately protected under man's suffrage; that no adequate results have appeared from woman suffrage and that office-holding by women is "risky". All these arguments sound today ancient. If we turn to easily available statistics we find that instead of the women of this country or of any other country being confined chiefly to child bearing they are as a matter of fact engaged and engaged successfully in practically every pursuit in which men are engaged. The actual work of the world today depends more largely upon women than upon men. Consequently this man-ruled world faces an astonishing dilemma: either Woman the Worker is doing the world's work successfully or not. If she is not doing it well why do we not take from her necessity of working? If she is doing it well why not treat her as a worker with a voice in the direction of work? The statement that woman is weaker than man is sheer rot: It is the same sort of thing that we hear about "darker races" and "lower classes." Difference, either physical or spiritual, does not argue weakness or inferiority. That the average woman is spiritually different from the average man is undoubtedly just as true as the fact that the average white man differs from the average Negro; but this is no reason for disfranchising the Negro or lynching him. It is inconceivable that any person looking upon the accomplishments of women today in every field of endeavor, realizing their humiliating handicap and the astonishing prejudices which they face and yet seeing despite this that in government, in the professions, in sciences, art and literature and the industries they are leading and dominating forces and growing in power as their emancipation grows,-it is inconceivable that any fair-minded person could for a moment talk about a "weaker" sex. The sex of Judith, Candace, Queen Elizabeth, Sojourner Truth and Jane Addams was the merest incident of human function and not a mark of weakness and inferiority. To say that men protect women with their votes is to overlook the flat testimony of the facts. In the first place there are millions of women who have no natural men protectors: the unmarried, the widowed, the deserted and those who have married failures. To put this whole army incontinently out of court
