"I Did Not Raise My Girl to Be a Voter" (1915), Puck's chorus

A pro-suffrage Puck cartoon of 9 October 1915. A woman marked ANTI sings a solo while a political boss conducts and six men labeled procurer, dive keeper, child labor employer, grafter, cadet, and sweat shop owner sing behind her. It parodies the song "I Didn't Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier." Library of Congress.

The performance

The cartoon is staged as a concert. A woman with ANTI spelled in large letters down her dress sings the solo. In the foreground a conductor with POLITICAL BOSS on his collar keeps time. Behind her stands the chorus, six men, each labeled on the chest or collar.

PROCURER   DIVE KEEPER   CHILD LABOR EMPL[OYER]   GRAFTER   CADET   SWEAT SHOP OWNER

ANTI

POLITICAL BOSS

"I DID NOT RAISE MY GIRL TO BE A VOTER"

SOPRANO SOLO WITH VOCIFEROUS SUPPORTING CHORUS OF MALE VOICES

Guilt by chorus

The title parodies the anti-war song "I Didn't Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier." The joke is in who is singing along. The archive tags the cartoon with transfer and spells out the method: it places the anti-suffrage position among labeled figures of vice so that their stigma attaches to it, without evidence about any named person.

That is a fair reading, and it cuts in an uncomfortable direction for anyone on the right side of the suffrage question. The cause was just. Women were citizens and had every claim to the vote. But this cartoon does not argue the claim; it argues that the opponents keep bad company. The labels are types, not people, and the cartoon gives no proof that procurers or sweatshop owners funded or led the opposition. A sound cause does not need guilt by association, and it is no defense of the method that it was used for a good end.

The cartoon still has a real point under the caricature. It suggests that some interests had a stake in keeping women from voting, and the caption gives the chorus of men the louder voice. Whether particular bosses or dive keepers worked against suffrage is a question for evidence, not for a drawing.

Both sides

The site's suffrage and anti-suffrage case study discusses this cartoon among the tricks used on both sides, alongside the "Kaiser Wilson" banner. The anti side's own print is on this site too: a card of about 1915 from the Georgia Association Opposed to Woman's Suffrage, Vote Against Woman Suffrage, whose last reason reads "White Supremacy must be maintained." The 1917 photograph of the Kaiser Wilson banner shows a National Woman's Party picket banner at the White House.