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Religion was a factor
of opposition in the beginning. Some
church people said the Bible placed women under the power and authority of men.
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Moralists felt that
women should devote themselves to their families; that
children would go uncared for and that the morals of the nation would crumble if
women got the vote.
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The liquor industry
feared that women would outlaw the sale of alcohol. (Francis Willard, head of the Women’s Christian Temperance
Union, adopted suffrage as a major goal.)
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Heads of industry
felt that if women had the right to vote, they would work for child labor laws
and to improve working conditions in mills and factories.
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Some, men and women, were
opposed to change. They
liked life the way it was. In 1911,
the National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage published a journal, “Woman’s
Protest.”
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There were those
who believed that women were weaker
physically and mentally than men.
Anti-Suffragists,
both men and women, interrupted the suffragists at their meetings and
conventions. They also wrote articles and songs, and spoke out against women’s
right to vote.