if a man or woman cannot accept
them, then he is at heart an "anti," even if he has constructed for
himself a quantity of reasons, religious, ethical, economic, political
or what not, why women should be allowed to vote. Every suffrage
argument is, or can be, based on decencies, not on emotion or
statistics.

Chesterton bases his case on decencies, but they are not the decencies
that matter. In _What's Wrong with the World_ he insists on the
indecency of allowing women to cease to be amateurs within the home, or
of allowing them to earn a living in a factory or office, or of
allowing them to share in the responsibility for taking the lives of
condemned murderers, or of allowing them to exercise the coercion which
is government, which is a sort of pyramid, with a gallows on top, the
ultimate resort of coercive power. And in these alleged indecencies (the
word is not altogether my own) lies Chesterton's whole case against
allowing any woman to vote. Into these propositions his whole case, as
expressed in _What's Wrong with the World_, is faithfully condensed.

Well now, are these indecencies sincere or simulated? First, as regards
the amateur, Chesterton's case is that the amateur is necessary, in
order to counteract the influences of the specialist. Man is nowadays
the specialist. He is confined to making such things as the thousandth
part of a motor-car or producing the ten-thousandth part of a daily
newspaper. By being a specialist he is made narrow. Woman, with the
whole home on her hands, has a multiplicity of tasks. She is the
amateur, and as such she is free. If she is put into politics or
industry she becomes a specialist, and as such becomes a slave. This is
a pretty piece of reasoning, but it is absolutely hollow. There are few
women who do not gladly resign part at least of their sovereignty, if
they have the chance, to a maid-servant (who may be, and, in fact,
usually is an amateur, but is not free to try daring experiments) or to
such blatant specialists as cooks and nursemaids. Nobody is the least
bit shocked by the existence of specialist women. Indeed, it is a solemn
fact, that were it not for them Chesterton would be unable to procure a
single article of clothing. He would be driven to the fig-leaf, and
would stand a good chance of not getting even so much, now that so many
gardeners are women. We are terribly dependent upon the specialist
woman. That is why the amateur within the home is beginning to wo