Narcissa Cox Vanderlip: women and Democracy

March is Women’s History Month. NY1920s always centers women’s history; this month we’ll do so a bit more emphatically.

One hundred years ago today … Narcissa Cox Vanderlip, Chair of the League of Women Voters of New York State, was interviewed at length to accompany The Evening World’s feature called “Ten-Second News Movies.”

Note: we last mentioned Vanderlip in a report on the 1921 activism of Eleanor Roosevelt, who was a close associate.

Vanderlip:

"We wanted the vote because we wanted real democracy," [Vanderlip] began in her quiet, earnest voice, with its rich undertone. "You can't have democracy unless you have universal suffrage.

"Now, there have been many forms of autocracy in the world. One sort was that practised by the Czar of Russia--an autocracy based on ignorance. Another kind of autocracy was that of Emperor Wilhelm of Germany-an autocracy based on great intelligence, remarkable organization, but a paralysis of the independent will.

"We have had for many years in this country a similar autocracy--the domination of a machine, a little group of bosses, over citizens that do not think or act for themselves in politics. They have been busy with other matters and the machine has convinced them that it is so much better and easier to leave to the machine the affairs of government.”

The interviewer was columnist Marguerite Mooers Marshall, whom we have seen writing about Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence and (separately) anti-feminism. 

– Jonathan Goldman, March 11, 2022

TAGS: women, gender, equality, civil rights, voting, politics, feminism, suffrage, corruption