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8
THE CRISIS
VOTES FOR WOMEN.
SOME 75,000 Negro voters in the State of New York will be asked to decide this month as to whether or not they are willing that women should have the vote in this State. It is an unpleasant but well-known fact that hitherto American Negro voters have, in the majority of cases, not been favorable to woman suffrage. This attitude has been taken fo two main reasons: First the Negro, still imbued by the ideals of a past generation, does not realize the new status of women in industrial and social life. Despite the fact that within his own group women are achieving economic independence even faster than whites, he thinks of these are exceptional and abnormal and looks forward to the time when his wages will be large enough to support his wife and daughters in comparative idleness at home.
Secondly, the American Negro is particularly bitter at the attitude of many white women: at the naïve assumption that the height of his ambition is to marry them, at their artificially-inspired fear of every dark face, which leads to frightful accusations and suspicions, and at their sometimes insulting behavior toward him in public places.
Notwithstanding the undoubted weight of these two reasons, the American Negro must remember, First, that the day when women can be considered as the mere appendages of men, dependent upon their bounty and educated chiefly for their pleasure, has gone by; that as an intelligent, self-supporting human being a woman has just as good a right to a voice in her own government as has any man; and that the denial of this right is as unjust as is the denial of the right to vote to American Negroes.
Secondly, two wrongs never mad a right. We cannot punish the insolence of certain classes of American white women or correct their ridiculous fears by denying them their undoubted rights.
It goes without saying that the women's vote, particularly in the South, will be cast almost unanimously, at first, for every reactionary Negro-hating piece of legislation that is proposed; that the Bourbons and the demagogs, who are today sitting in the National Legislature by the reason of stolen votes, will have additional backing for some years from the votes of white women.
But against this consideration it must be remembered that these same women are going to learn political justice a great deal more quickly than did their men and that despite their prejudices their very emergence into the real, hard facts of life and out of the silly fairy-land to which their Southern male masters beguile them is going to teach them sense in time.
Moreover, it is going to be more difficult to disfranchise colored women in the South than it was to disfranchise colored men. Even southern "gentlemen," as used as they are to the mistreatment of colored women, cannot in the blaze of present publicity physically beat them away from the polls. Their economic power over them will be smaller than their power over the men and while you can still bribe some pauperized Negro laborers with a few dollars at election time, you cannot bribe Negro women.
It is, therefore, of the utmost importance that every single black voter in the State of New York should this month cast his ballot in favor of woman suffrage and that every black voter in the United States should do the same thing whenever and as often as he has opportunity.
It is only in such broad-minded willingness to do justice to all, even to his own temporary hurt, that the black man can prove his right not only to share, but to help direct modern culture.

9
EDITORIAL
CO-OPERATION.
THE CRISIS has now for several months bee developing a program looking toward an economic forward movement among the Negroes of the United States. The matter has been developed slowly in order to have as large a number of people as possible understand just that it is that THE CRISIS has in mind.
The first duty of a modern citizen is to earn a living; but earning a living today is a complicated thing and it would be a great mistake for Negroes to try the old, individualistic laissez-faire method.
Co-operation in economics can, perhaps best be explained by quoting a leaflet by Dr. J. P. Warbasse: "The Co-operative Movement is an organized non-political effort of the people to control the production and distribution of the things needed to satisfy their wants. It is devoted to the principle that things should be done and commodities produced for use rather than for exchange....
"With a regularity of increase which has seemed almost fatalistic, the movement has spread. In most European countries the membership in the co-operative societies has about doubled itself every ten years. Now, after three-quarters of a century, in many of these countries the number of people embraced in the movement is passing from a large minority toward a majority of the total population. In some sections it has already become a large majority.
"Food, clothing, housing, fuel, insurance, transportation, and entertainment are all provided by co-operative societies for their members. To attain these things has meant, first, the organization of the people as consumers, and then production for these organized consumers. This has involved study, consecration, and organization talent. There have been many conflicts with the forces of capitalism, but co-operation has won.
...
"The powerful combines, with capital, unscrupulous control of politics, and the force of vested interests behind them, have been beaten by organizations largely composed of working people. Co-operation has succeeded against the greatest economic odds. Now the distributing agencies, the lands and mills of the co-operators, have become noteworthy object of industry. Some of these are among the largest flour mills, shoe factories, canneries and bakeries in the world - all producing things, not for the competitive market, but for the people who own and consume them....
"Experience and not theory has developed the fact that the successful co-operative movement which leads straight to the goal, begins with the organization of the people as consumers. These have an immutable economic principle working for them. The consumer has the money; if he has not he cannot consume; or he consumes with somebody's else money. He and his purse are the aim and object of business. Commerce is addressed to him. It is for him that the honey of trade is spread, music plays, lights sparkle, and all the prostitution of business is made as alluring as genius can contrive. As consumers, business takes off its hat to the workers; bows, flatters and smirks, and licks the dust from their shoes.
"Whenever the people organize as consumers, then they begin to enjoy the economic advantages of their organization; not at some remote day, but from the moment they organize; not when all are organized, but when even a few are gathered together.
"These are some of the important things which experience has revealed, and it may be assumed that they will