xt70rx937t9n_427 https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt70rx937t9n/data/mets.xml https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt70rx937t9n/data/46m4.dao.xml unknown 13.63 Cubic Feet 34 boxes, 2 folders, 3 items In safe - drawer 3 archival material 46m4 English University of Kentucky The physical rights to the materials in this collection are held by the University of Kentucky Special Collections Research Center.  Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Laura Clay papers Temperance. Women -- Political activity -- Kentucky. Women's rights -- Kentucky. Women's rights -- United States -- History. Women -- Suffrage -- Kentucky. Women -- Suffrage -- United States. Equal Suffrage leaflet text Equal Suffrage leaflet 2020 https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt70rx937t9n/data/46m4/Box_16/Folder_7/Multipage18834.pdf 1898-1900 1900 1898-1900 section false xt70rx937t9n_427 xt70rx937t9n WOMAN SUFFRAGE LE AFLET.

 

 

equal suffrage was elected, and framed a
constitution excluding women. A friend
of the present writer talked with many of
the members while the‘ convention was in
session. He says almost every lawyer in
that body acknowledged, in private con-
versation, that the decision by which the
women had been disfranchised was illegal.
“But,” they said, “the women had set the
community by the ears on the temperance
question, and we had to get rid of them.”
One politician said, frankly, “Women are
natural mugwumps, and I hate a mug-
wump.”

Later, in 1889, the question was sub-
mitted to the voters, and lost, the same
elements that defeated it in the conven-
tion defeating it at the polls, with the
addition of a great influx of foreign immi-
grants, consequent upon the completion
of the Northern Pacific Railroad.

Dr. Abbott and our Eastern Antis say
that the wish of the majority of women
.ought to settle the question. Not one of
them had a word of rebuke for the dis-
honorable and illegal methods by which
the women of Washington were prevented
from voting as to whether they should
continue to vote or not. When Wyoming
was admitted as a State, after twenty
years’ experience of equal suffrage as a

 

Territory, there was no doubt that the
majority of its women wished to vote.
Nine-tenths of them were in the habit
of voting; a constitutional convention,
chosen by men and women together, had
incorporated woman suffrage in the new
State constitution by a large majority;
and the constitution had been submitted
to the voters, men and women together,
and had been approved by them. Yet
when it came up for ratification in Con-
gress, the opponents first tried to have
the equal suffrage clause struck out
bodily. Failing in this, they moved to
have it submitted again to the voters of
Wyoming; and how submitted? To the
women alone, in order to make quite sure
that the majority of the women really
wanted it? By no means; but to the men
alone, the women to be allowed no voice
in the matter; and this precious proposi-
tion actually came within a very few votes
of carrying Congress. Dr. Abbott and
our Antis had not a word of blame; they
would have been glad to see the women
of Wyoming disfranchised against their
will. In short, they believe that the wish
of the majority of women ought to decide
the questibn if the majority are opposed,
but that it ought not to be counted at all
when the majority are in favor.

 

 

The Woman’s Journal.
A weekly paper, founded 1870, by Lucy Stone. Editors, H. B. Blackwell,
Alice Stone Blackwell. 3 Park Street, Bost0n, Mass.

“The best source of information upon the woman question that I know.”—C[rzra Barton.
First year on trial to new subscribers, $1.50. Regular price, $2.60.

“’oman Suffrage Tracts—Sample set of 'Woman Suffrage Leaflets (40 different kinds),

postpaid, 10 cents. Address:

Leaflet Department, Massachusetts Woman’s Suffrage Association,

3 Park Street, Boston, Mass.

 

 

Published Bi=Monthly at the OffiCe of The Woman’s Journal, Boston, Mass ‘

 

 

Vol. VII. Entered at the Boston Post-Office as second-class matter.

 

 

Subscription, 25 cents per annum.

 

MARCH 1900.

Extra copies, 30 cts. per xoo, postpaid.

The Case of Washington.

BY ALICE STONE BLACKVVELL.

Dr. Lyman Abbott, in the New York
Outlook, lately referred to the fact that
equal suffrage prevailed in Washington for
a short time many years ago, and was
abolished there. He says that the peo-
ple of Washington had experience of
women serving on juries, etc., and “re-
traced the step” they had taken,—-a state-
ment calculated to give uninformed readers
of the Outlook the impression'that equal
suffrage worked badly. Dr. Abbott had
probably forgotten the facts in the case.
Opponents of equal rights do not like to
remember them.

Women voted in Washington for the
first time in 1884, and were disfranchised
by the Supreme Court in 1887.

Equal suffrage was granted to women
by the Legislature of Washington Terri-
tory in October, 1883. The women at
once began to distinguish themselves
there, as they have done in Wyoming and
elsewhere, by voting for the best man,
irrespective of party. The old files of the
Washington newspapers bear ample evi-
dence to this fact.

The first chance that the women had to
vote was at the municipal elections of

' July, 1884. The Seattle Mirror said:

The city election of last Monday was for
more reasons than one the most important
ever held in Seattle. The presence of
women at the voting-places had the effect
of preventing the disgraceful proceedings
usually seen. It was the first election in
the city where the women could vote, and
the first where the gambling and liquor
fraternity, which had so long controlled
the municipal government to an enormous
extent, suffered defeat.

The Post-Intelligencer said:

After the experience of the late election
it will not do for any one here to say the
women do not want to vote. They dis-

 

played as much interest as the men, and,
if anything, more. . . . The resultinsures
Seattle a first-class municipal administra-
tion. It is a warning to that undesirable
class of the community who subsist upon
the weaknesses and vices of society that
disregard of law and the decencies of
civilization will not be tolerated.

Quotations might be multiplied from
the papers of other towns, testifying to
the independent voting of the women, the
large size of their vote, the courtesy with
which they were treated, and the greater
quiet and order produced by their pres-
ence at the polls.

Next came the general election of No-
vember, 1884. Again the newspapers
were practically unanimous as to the
result. The Olympia Transcript, which
was opposed to equal suffrage, said:

The result shows that all parties must
put up good men if they expect to elect
them. They cannot do as they have in the
past—nominate any candidates, and elect
them by the force of the party lash.

The Democratic State Journal said:

Any one could not fail to see that here-
after more attention must be given at the
primaries to select the purest'of material,
by both parties, if they would gain the
female vote.

Charles J. Woodbury visited Washing-
ton about this time. In a letter to the
N. Y. Evening Post, he said:

Whatever may be the vicissitudes of
woman suffrage in Washington Territory
in the future, it should now be put on
record that at the election, Nov. 4, 1884,
nine-tenths of its adult female population
availed themselves of the right to vote
with a hearty enthusiasm. What is the
result so far?

He goes on to say that he arrived in
Seattle on Sunday, and was surprised at
the quiet and order he found prevailing,

 

 WOMAN SUFFRAGE LE AFLET.

2

 

 

 

and at the general Sunday closing of the
places of business:

Even the bars of the hotels were closed;
and this was the worst town in the Terri-
tory (except Ainsworth) when I first saw
it. Now its uproarious theatres, dance-
houses, squaw-brothels, and Sunday fights
are things of the past. Not a gambling
house exists.

Women served on the jury, and meted
out the full penalty of the law to gamblers
and keepers of disorderly houses. The
Chief Justice of the Territory at that time
was Hon. Roger S. Greene, a cousin of
U. S. Senator Hoar, a man of high char-
acter and integrity, and a magistrate cele-
brated throughout the Northwest for his
resolute and courageous resistance to
lynch law. In his charge to the Grand
Jury at Port Townsend, August, 1884,
Chief Justice Greene said:

The opponents of woman suffrage in
this Territory are found allied with a
solid phalanx of gamblers, prostitutes,
pimps, and drunkard-makers—a phalanx
composed of all in each of those classes
who know the interest of the class and
vote according to it.

It is to be hoped that the Rev. Dr.
Abbott and 0111‘ Eastern Antis like the
company in which they find themselves.

In his charge to another Grand Jury
later, Chief Justice Greene said:

Twelve terms of court, ladies and gentle-
men, I have now held, in which women
have served as grand and petit jurors, and
it is certainly a fact beyond dispute that
no other twelve terms so salutary for
restraint of crime have ever been held in
this Territory. For fifteen years I have
been trying to do what a judge ought, «but
have never till the last six months felt
underneath and around me, in the degree
that every judge has a right to feel it, the
upbuoying might of the people in the line
of full and resolute enforcement of the
law.

Gamblers and other bad characters,
finding Washington too hot for them,
crossed the border into British Columbia
in such numbers as caused prominent
men there to declare that British Colum-
bia would have to adopt woman suffrage
too, in self-defence. Hon. John D. Robson,
in introducing a woman suffrage bill in
the Parliament of British Columbia, said:
“The women of Washington are voting
all the gamblers and blacklegs out of

 

the Territory, and they are coming over
here.”

Naturally, the vicious elements disliked
“the full and resolute enforcement of law.”
The baser sort of politicians also disliked
the independent voting of the women.
The Republicans had a normal majority
in the Territory. But they nominated for
a high office a man who was a hard
drinker. The Republican women would
not vote for him, and he was defeated.
Next they nominated a man who had for
years been openly living with an Indian
woman and had a family of half—breed
children. Again the Republican women
refused to vote for him, and he was
defeated. This brought the enmity of the
Republican “machine” upon woman suf-
frage. The Democratic women showed
equal independence, and incurred the hos-
tility of the Democratic machine.

Then the ever-present liquor question
became involved. Dr. Abbott is careful
to remind his readers that woman suflrage
has not led to prohibition, either in Wy-
oming or Colorado. (This ought to be a
recommendation in Dr. Abbott’s eyes,
since he is himself opposed to prohibi-
tion.) Neither did it lead to pro‘hi-
bition in Washington; but a Legislature
elected by ‘men and women together
passed a local option law which was ex-
tremely unpopular with the liquor in-
terest.

Not long after, a change of administra‘
tion at Washington led to a change in the
Territorial Supreme Court. The newly
appointed Chief Justice and a majority of
the new judges of the Supreme Court
were opposed to equal sufirage, and were
amenable, it is said, to the strong
pressure brought to bear upon them by
all the vicious elements to secure its
repeal. A gambler who had been con-
victed by a jury composed in part of wo-
men contested the sentence on the ground
that women were not legal voters, and the
Supreme Court decided that the woman
suffrage bill was unconstitutional, because
it had been headed “An Act to Amend
Section So and So, Article So and So of
the Code,” instead of “An Act to En-
franchise Women.” The Organic Act of
the Territory, which stood to it in the
place of a constitution, provided that

WOMAN S UFFRAGE LE AF LET.

 

 

every bill must be fully described in its
title. Nineteen other bills passed by the
same Legislature ‘ had been headed in
the same way as the suffrage bill, without
being therefore declared unconstitutional,
including the bill that authorized the sit-
ting of the court which pronounced this
decision. But no account was taken of
that fact. The object was to get rid of
woman suffrage; and the vicious elements
rejoiced greatly.

But this decision was rendered a good
while after the members of the next bien-
nial Legislature had been elected by men
and women together; and it did not in-
validate the election, because according
to law no member’s election could be
contested after a certain time had elapsed.
When the Legislature met, in 1888, it re-
enacted the woman suffrage bill, giving it
a full heading, and strengthening it in
every way possible.

Washington was about to be admitted
as a State, and was preparing to hold a
constitutional convention to frame a State
constitution. There was no doubt that
the majority of the women wanted to
vote. Chief Justice Greene estimated
that five-sixths of them had voted at the
last election before they were deprived of
the right. Two successive Legislatures
elected by men and women jointly had re-
enacted woman sufirage (forits continu-
ance had been made a test question in the
choice of the first Legislature for which
the women voted, and that Legislature
had been careful to insert the words “he
or she” in all bills relating to the elec-
tion laws). It was admitted on all hands
that if the women were allowed to vote
for members of the constitutional con-
vention, it would be impossible to elect a
convention that would wipe out woman
suffrage. . It was therefore imperative to
deprive the women of their votes before
the members of the convention were
chosen. A scheme was arranged for the
purpose. On the ground that she was a
woman, the election officers at a local
election refused the vote of Mrs. Nevada
Boomer, a saloon-keeper’s wife, who was
opposed to suffrage. They accepted the
votes of all the other women. She made
a test case by bringing suit against them.

 

In the ordinary course of things, the case
would not have come up till after the
elecnion of the constitutional convention.
But cases for the restoration of personal
rights may be advanced on the docket,
and Mrs. Boomer’s ostensible object was
the restoration of her personal rights9
though her real object was to deprive all
women of theirs. Her case was put forward
on the docket and hurried to a decision.

The Supreme Court this time pro-
nounced the woman suffrage law un-
constitutional on the ground that it was
beyond the power of a Territorial Legisla-
ture to enfranchise women. The Organic
Act of the Territory said that at the first
Territorial election persons with certain
qualifications should vote, and at subse-
quent elections such persons as the Terri-
torial Legislature might enfranchise. But
the court took the ground that in giving
the Legislature the right to regulate suf-
frage, Congress did not at the time have
it specifically in mind that they might
enfranchise women, and that therefore
they could not do so. The suffragists
wanted to have the case appealed to the
Supreme Court of the United States. If
that court had sustained the decision of
the Washington Supreme Court, it would
have been a “ten-strike” for the opponents.
of equal rights, since it would have wiped
out woman suffrage not only in Washing-
ton, but in Wyoming, and in all the other
Territories that had granted full or partial
suffrage to women. But Mrs. Boomer
refused to let the case be appealed; her
friends knew perfectly well that legally
the decision had not a leg to stand on;
and none of the women who favored suf-
frage could make a genuine test case and
take it up to the U. S. Supreme Court,
because none of them had had their votes
refused. It was an adroitly combined con-
spiracy to keep the women from being al-
lowed to vote as to whether they should
retain the suffrage.

The women themselves being prevented
from voting, their friends were not able to
overcome the combined “machines” of
both political parties, and the intense op-,
position of all the vicious and disorderly
elements, at that time pretty large on the
Pacific Coast. A convention opposed to

 

 EQUAL SUE‘ FRAG la)

 

LEA F L E’I‘.

 

Published Bi=Monthly at the Office of

 

The Woman‘s Journal, Boston, Mass.

 

Vol. VII.

Subscription, 25 cents per annum.

Entered at the Boston l’ost—Ullice as second-class matter.

No. l.

SEPTEMBER, x898. Extra copies, is cts. per I00, postpaid.

 

ABE WOMEN no IGNURANT?

By Mrs. Isabella

An excellent young woman, who be-
lieves fully in the true democracy that can
only be had when women as well as men
are responsible voters, said to me lately:
“But women are so ignorant on public
affairs, it does seem as if they ought to be
educated before they are allowed to vote.
It is dreadful to double the ignorant vote;
and, besides, women might be bribed just
as men are.” To this I replied: “First, as
to bribery, there would not be money
enough to go around when you double
the constituency. Second, and if there
were, you couldn’tfind the women. They
are all either at home, taking care of
their children and working for their hus-
bands, or at work in shops and private
families, and not loafing in the streets
and hanging around saloons as men are
and it will be years and years before they
could get into the Legislatures if they
wanted to. Third, and when found, they
will know too much to be bribed.” Here
is a specimen:

Some years ago, a young Catholic wom-
an who had served in our family a long
time as cook, asked me if I would attend
one of her club meetings some evening,
and give them a little talk. She had, it
seems, been a member some time, but I
had not heard of it before. I asked her
about the club, and she handed me a little
book, entitled “Constitution and Rules of
the Ladies’ Benevolent Society, Hartford,
Conn., Organized August, 1887—Constitu-
tion Revised, 1891.”

I went to a meeting in our City Mission
Hall, a large and charming room which
the club rented by the year. I found
some two hundred women attending to
the usual business, under the leadership
of the president, a woman of forty per-
haps, who showed herself an excellent
parliamentarian, though her occupation
was that of tailoress, and she went to work
in a shop at 8 A. M., taking her lunch and
returning home at 0 P. M. I made them
a little talk, to the effect that, when our
brothers of the republic should condescend
to admit women to their counsels and the
ballot-box, they would be astonished at
the help they would receive from such
women as themselves, and, until that time
came, I saw little reason to hope that in-
temperance and licentiousness, poverty
and starvation, would cease to afflict the
body-politic. So I begged them to go on

 

Beecher Hooker.

with their good work, and wait patiently
for the day of recognition. I found there
were no restrictions in regard to religion,
occupation, or nationality;only good chm--
acter was requisite for membership. The
main sections of the Constitution and By-
Laws might serve as a model for the other
societies which are being formed in towns
and villages all over our country. The
membership is now over four hundred, and
there is no diminution of interest at the
end of the eleven years of the club’s ex-
istenee.

So much for the education that the so-
called lower classes are giving them-
selves. There are many similar clubs, I
find, in our own little city; and only last
winter I was invited to speak at a Fair
given by a society of colored women of
Hartford, who were working for the pur-
pose of founding a State home for aged
colored people of both sexes. Now, add
to this the education that society women
are giving themselves in the innumerable
literary, scientific, and political clubs of
the whole country, and what becomes of
the fear of doubling the ignorant vote?

In regard to these clubs, Carroll D.
Wright, in his late statistical report upon
“Women’s Clubs and Societies,” has this
to say of the number and variety of
benevolent societies established and con-
ducted by women:

Many secret benevolent organizations,
more or less after the pattern of Masonry,
have been formed, chiefly by American
women, and, to a lesser degree, by Jewish
women. Mutual benefit unions have been
founded by Germans, Americans, English,
Scandinavians, and Hebrews. Irish wom-
en have established house visiting, sick
visiting, and beneficent societies. All
nationalities have joined forces in forming
women’s auxiliaries to hospitals, asylums,
refuges, and sanitariums. The training of
girls to be servants, and the education of
servants, have called many clubs into ex-
istence. Societies in aid of schools and
poor scholars are another prominent fea-
ture. One of them, the Vassar Students’
Aid, has nearly 3,000 members. Free
kindergartens and day nurseries have been
endowed and conducted by special socie-
ties formed for the purpose. Another
phase of philanthropy is represented by
boys’ reading rooms, college settlements,
nurses’ settlements, and homes for unem-
ployed girls. The number of these new
institutions is surprising. Itis said that at
the present rate of progress, one-third of
the women of New York will be organ-

 

 ized within the next five years into socie—
ties whose aim is the betterment of the
individual and the community.

Add to this the number of women now
studying the higher branches (including
always political economy) in our high
schools, normal schools, and colleges,
many of whom will become teachers in
our public schools. On this point we
have the testimony of no less a person
than Prof. Harris, National Commissioner
of Education at Washington. On my
writing to him for accurate information as
to the number of women compared with
men who are now students at these insti—
tutions, he wrote me as follows:

I find, on making the actual calculation,
that the women in secondary and higher
education, added together, number 287,-
162, and the men number 235,296, equal
to 54.9% of the former, and 45.1% of the
latter. This, you see, is almost exactly
55% women to 45% men for the entire edu-
cation higher than the elementary schools.

And President Capen, of Tufts College,
said in a recent address: “Our colleges
have doubled in numbers within ten years,
and the number of women who are getting
ready for college is astonishing. When
all the women now preparing for college
are educated and begin studying the social
questions of their time, What may we not
hope for in the solution of the difficulties
that now confront us?”

Let us take courage, dear sisters, and
not allow ourselves to be deluded by the
fear that we are not sufficiently educated
to take part in public affairs. Responsi-
bility is all the education we need to-day,
and when put to the test we shall not be
found wanting.

PROGRESS OF WOMAN SUFFRAGE.

It is often asserted by opponents that
the movement for equal suffrage is losing
ground. On this point, let the “hard
facts” speak for themselves:

Sixty years ago women could not vote
anywhere. In 1838, Kentucky gave school
suffrage to widows. In 1861, Kansas gave
it to all women. In 1869, England gave
municipal suffrage to single women and

_\l:l‘] \VHMICN 'l‘()(’) l(lN()ll:\N'l'i’

 

widows, and \Vyoming gave full suffrage
to all women. School suffrage was granted
in 1875 by Michigan and Minnesota, in 1876
by Colorado, in 1878 by New Hampshire
and Oregon, in 1879 by Massachusetts, in
1880 by New York and Vermont. In 1881
municipal suffrage was extended to the
single women and widows of Scotland.
Nebraska gave school suffrage in 1883, and
Wisconsin in 1885. In 1886 school suf-
frage was given in Washington, and mu-
nicipal suffrage to single women and
widows in New Brunswick and Ontario.
In 1887 municipal suffrage was extended
to all women in Kansas, and school suf-
frage in North and South Dakota, Mon—
tana, Arizona, and New Jersey. In the
same year, Montana gave tax —paying
women the right to vote upon all questions
submitted to the tax-payers. In 1889
municipal suffrage was granted to single
women and widows in the Province of
Quebec. In 1891, school suffrage was
granted in Illinois. In 1893 school suf—
frage was granted in Connecticut, and full
suffrage in Colorado and New Zealand. In
1894 school suffrage was granted in Ohio,
a limited municipal suffrage in Iowa, and
parish and district suffrage in England to
women both married and single. In 1895
full sufirage was granted in South Austra-
lia to women both married and single. In
1896 full suffrage was granted in Utah
and Idaho. In 1898 municipal and county
suffrage have been granted to the single
women and widows of Ireland, the women
of Minnesota have been given the right to
vote for library trustees. and the tax-pay-
ing women of Louisiana have been given
the right to vote upon all questions sub—
mitted to the tax payers.

Years ago, when equal suffrage was
much more unpopular than it is to-day,
some one asked Bishop Gilbert Haven if
it were true that he had been speaking at
a woman suffrage meeting.

“Yes,” answered the Bishop, “I don’t
want to fall in at the rear of this reform ;
I mean to march with the procession 1”

There can be no doubt as to which way
the procession is moving.

The Woman’s Journal.

A weekly paper, founded 1870, by Lucy Stone.

Editors, H. B. Blackwell,

Alice Stone Blackwell.
3 PARK STREET, BOSTON, BIASS.
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hunianity."—.l arr A. /.i7‘:')'man'.

"It is an exceedingly bright paper. and. what is far better. a just one.

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I L‘ould not (lo without it."—

"'I‘he best woman's paper in the United States, or in the world.”—/?n,;r/:'5/1tt'omjn‘x li’yt'x'cu'.

{82.50 per year.

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Woman Suffrage Tracts.

Sample set of \Voman Suffrage lieallois (40 different kinds), postpaiil, 10 cents.

Address:

\Vonax‘s JOURNAL, 13 Park Street. Boston, Mass.

 

 - /" the polling-places.

Publish; Bi=Mont

EQUAL SUFFIQAJE 3

LEA F LIE/1‘.

hly at the Office efiThie Woman's JournalTIBoston, Mass;

 

Entered at the Boston Post-(Hike as second-class matter.

Subscription, 25 cents per annum.

NOVEMBER, 1898. Extra copies, 15 cts. per 100, postpaid.

Equal Suffrage Promotes lilflil

Previous to women’s voting, polling
places were often located in untidy and
most unsuitable places. Since the advent
of viromen in politics, polling-booths are
erected in cleaner and respectable locali-
ties, and profanity in and near the booths
has disappeared. This improved environ-
ment we believe to be an external expres-
sion of cleaner political methods, for
primaries, conventions, and legislative
halls are more orderly, personal abuse of
opposing candidates is less frequent, and
the machine politician is far less in evi-
dence than formerly—Mrs. Susan Riley
Ashley, Denver, Col.

7 Colorado, equal suffrage has reformed
If half the bad things
that used to be told us about the polls
were true—that drunken men stood there
in rows, and that two-dollar bills flew to
and fro between the politicians and the
voters—the polls certainly were no place
for decent women; but neither were they
any place for decent men. Now they are

fit for either decent men or decent women. ,

——Mrs. Mary C. 0. Bradford, Denver,
Col.

The improvement that women’s pres-
ence has made in the localities of primary
meetings and polling-booths is character-
istic of Western chivalry. In many pre-
cincts where formerly they were held in
stables or drinking saloons, primaries are
now convened in home parlors, and poll-
ing—booths are arranged in respectable
buildings, and voting is invariably con-
ducted with decorum.—Mrs. Susan M.
Hall, Denver, Col.

Woman’s influence is seen in the more
orderly conduct of primary and caucus,
and the improved condition of polling
places, which are now never located in
the vicinity of saloons. When the new
voters discovered that the booths were
often located in demoralizing neighbor-
hoods, they petitioned the committee-
men for suitable accommodations. The
request was speedily granted. In one
place, a church was opened for this novel
service. In another, a poor woman was
induced by the reward of ten dollars to
convert her humble parlor into a polling
booth. With removal from the vicinity of
saloons, the temptation to clandestine
treating is greatly lessened. A case of
intoxication is rarely seen. Election day
is as quiet as Sunday. A woman feels no
more sense of publicity in going to the
polls than in going to church or post-office.
—Mrs. Helen Gilbert Ecob, Denver, Col.

 

 

Instead of rough or vicious men, or even
drunken men, treating women with dis-
respect, the presence of a single good we-
i‘zian at the polls seemed to make the
whole crowd of men as respectful and
quiet as at the theatre or at church. To
the credit of American men be it said that
the presence of one woman or girl at the
polls, the wife or daughter of the hum-
blest mechanic, has as good an effect on
the crowd as the presence of the grandest
dame or the most fashionable belle. The
difference in American and European def-
erence to woman I have never seen so
strikingly illustrated as in these throngs
of people at the polls of this exciting and
most serious election. The American
Woman is clearly as much of a queen at
the polls, in her own bearing and the def-
erence paid her, as in the drawing—room
or at the opera—Hon. James S. Clarlcson,
of Iowa, after witnessing Denver election.

The astonishment of strangers at the
order and respectability of a Denver elec-
tion has been noted in other visitors. One
of these, after careful observation, re-
marked, “Why, is this all? I can’t see
anything out of the way. Where is the
mob?” Election day is more quiet than
Sunday—Mrs. Katharine A. G. Patterson,
Denver, Col.

Some results of equal suffrage in Colo-
rado are generally conceded: (l) The
improved moral quality of candidates
nominated for office by the various parties:
(2) a decidedly increased observance of
the courtesies and decencies of life, at the
different political headquarters, previous
to election; (3) better and more orderly
polling places; (4) a general and awaken-
ing interest, among both men and women,
in matters of public health, comfort, and
safety—Mrs. Ione T. Hanna, Denver, Col.

The experience we have had in Colo-
rado ought to demonstrate to every one
that woman suffrage is not only right,
but practical. It tends to elevate. There
is not a caucus but is better attended, and
by better people, and held in a better
place. I have seen the time when a polit-
ical convention without a disturbance
and the drawing of weapons was rare.
That time is past in Colorado, and it is
due to the presence of women. Every
man now shows that civility which makes
him take off his hat and not swear, and
deport himself decently when ladies are
present. Instead of women’s going to the
polls corrupting women, it has purified
the polls—U. S. Representative Shafroth.

 

 voted, we had a perfect pandemonium.
At the next election women voted, and
perfect order prevailed, and has prevailed
ever since. In caucus discussions, the
presence of a few ladies is worth more
than a whole squad of police—Hon. John
W. Kim/man, of 1173/oming Supreme Court.

Our polling places are as quiet and
respectable as any other place at which
women are expected to congregate, and in
the general election machinery the im-
provement over methods that would be in
vogue in the absence of Women is very
marked—11071. John ll'. Lacey, of “@0-
ming Supreme Court.

During my eight years of experience, I
have never witnessed any misconduct or
disturbance at the polls—Mrs. V'L'vla‘A. B.
Henderson, of Cheyenne, president Wyo—
ming Volunteer Aid Society.

Equal suffrage has had the effect of
making our elections the most quiet
and orderly I have ever seen anywhere.
Any woman may go to the polls un-
attended, with the same assurance of
safety, respect, and courtesy as if she
were going shopping or to prayer-meeting.
A man would incur personal danger who
should violate the rule of uniform cour-
tesy to all women under such circum-
stances—Hon. Samuel T. Corn, of Wyo-
ming Supreme Court.

,,,,,_+ , . a

As a result of the new order of things,
our caucuses and primary meetings are
conducted with due regard to decorum,
our conventions are more deliberative,
and the kindly consideration which the
American man always shows to woman
has induced even the rougher type to con-
sider that political gatherings in which
wome