It gives me pleasure to say briefly that the extension of the franchise to the women of Idaho has positively purified its politics.
It has compelled not only State conventions, but, more particularly, county conventions, of both parties, to select the cleanest and best material for public office. Many conventions have turned down their strongest local politicians for the simple reason that their moral habits were such that the women would unite against them, regardless of politics. It has also taken politics out of the saloon to a great extent, and has elevated local politics especially to a higher plane.
Every woman is interested in good government, in good officers, in the utmost economy of administration, and a low rate of taxation.
FRANK W. HUNT (Dem.), _Governor_. (1900.)
Woman suffrage has been in operation in Idaho for over four years and there have been no alarming or disastrous results. I think most people in the State, looking over the past objections to the extension of the right of suffrage, are now somewhat surprised that any were ever made.
As to advantages--it is, as in all matters of this kind, difficult to measure them exactly, because the benefit is largely indirect. I think, however, that it has exercised a good and considerable influence over conventions, resulting in the nomination of better men for office, and that it has been of considerable weight in securing the enactment of good laws.
S. H. HAYS (Fus.), _Ex-Attorney-General_. (1901.)
The adoption of equal suffrage has resulted in much good in Idaho. The system is working well, and the best result therefrom is the selection for public positions, State, county and munic.i.p.al. Our politics in the past has been manipulated by political adventurers, more or less, without regard to the best interests of the people, but princ.i.p.ally in the interests of a small coterie of politicians of the different parties, who have depended upon the public treasury for subsistence.
The partic.i.p.ation of our women in the conventions of our various political parties and in elections has a tendency to relegate the professional politicians, at least the worst element, and bring forth in their stead a better cla.s.s of people. This tendency is of vast importance to the State. It compels leaders of political parties to be more careful in the selection of candidates for different offices of trust and profit. RALPH P. QUARLES, _Justice of the Supreme Court_.
(1902.)
The Chief Justice and all the Judges of the Supreme Court have published a statement saying in part: "Woman suffrage in this State is a success; none of the evils predicted have come to pa.s.s, and it has gained much in popularity since its adoption by our people."
UTAH.
The lawmakers seem to be afraid of enfranchising women because of the deteriorating effect which politics might have on womankind. If this be true let the experience of Utah speak. For six years women in this State have had the right to vote and hold office. Have the wheels of progress stopped? Instead we have bounded forward with seven-league boots. Have the fears and predictions of the local opponents of woman suffrage been verified? Have women degenerated into low politicians, neglecting their homes and stifling the n.o.blest emotions of womanhood?
On the contrary women are respected quite as much as they were before Statehood; loved as rapturously as ever, and are led to the altar with the same beatific strains of music and the same unspeakable joy that invested ceremonials before their enfranchis.e.m.e.nt.
The plain facts are that in this State the influence of woman in politics has been distinctly elevating. In the primary, in the convention and at the polls her very presence inspires respect for law and order. Few men are so base that they will not be gentlemen in the presence of ladies. Experience has shown that women have voted their intelligent convictions. They understand the questions at issue and they vote conscientiously and fearlessly. While we do not claim to have the purest politics in the world in Utah, it will be readily conceded that the woman-vote is a terror to evildoers, and our course is, therefore, upward and onward.
One of the bugaboos of the opposition was that women would be compelled to sit on juries. Not a single instance of the kind has happened in the State, for the reason that women are never summoned; the law simply exempts them, but does not exclude them. Another favorite idiocy of the anti-suffragists is that if the women vote they ought to be compelled to fight. In the same manner the law exempts them from military service.
For one I am proud of Utah"s record in dealing with her female citizens. I take the same pride in it that a good husband would who had treated his wife well, and I look forward with eager hope to the day when woman suffrage shall become universal.
HEBER M. WELLS (Rep.), _Governor_. (1902.)
There is literally no end to the favorable testimony from Utah, given by Mormons and Gentiles alike.
WYOMING.
Gov. John A. Campbell was in office when the woman suffrage law was pa.s.sed. In 1871 he said in his message to the Territorial Legislature:
There is upon our statute book "an Act granting to the women of Wyoming Territory the right of suffrage," which has now been in force two years. It is simple justice to say that the women entering, for the first time in the history of the country, upon these new and untried duties, have conducted themselves in every respect with as much tact, sound judgment, and good sense, as men.
In 1873 he said: "Two years more of observation of the practical working of the system have only served to deepen my conviction that what we, in this Territory, have done, has been well done; and that our system of impartial suffrage is an unqualified success."
Governor Thayer, who succeeded Campbell, said in his message:
Woman suffrage has now been in practical operation in our Territory for six years, and has, during the time, increased in popularity and in the confidence of the people. In my judgment the results have been beneficial, and its influence favorable to the best interests of the community.
Governor Hoyt, who succeeded Thayer, said in 1882:
Under woman suffrage we have better laws, better officers, better inst.i.tutions, better morals, and a higher social condition in general, than could otherwise exist. Not one of the predicted evils, such as loss of native delicacy and disturbance of home relations, has followed in its train.
Later he said in a public address: "The great body of our women, and the best of them, have accepted the elective franchise as a precious boon and exercise it as a patriotic duty--in a word, after many years of happy experience, woman suffrage is so thoroughly rooted and established in the minds and hearts of the people that, among them all, no voice is ever uplifted in protest against or in question of it."
Governor Hale, who was next in this office, expressed himself repeatedly to the same effect.
Governor Warren, who succeeded Hale, said in a letter to Horace G.
Wadlin, Esq., of the Ma.s.sachusetts House of Representatives, in 1885:
Our women consider much more carefully than our men the character of candidates, and both political parties have found themselves obliged to nominate their best men in order to obtain the support of the women. As a business man, as a city, county, and territorial officer, and now as Governor of Wyoming Territory, I have seen much of the workings of woman suffrage, but I have yet to hear of the first case of domestic discord growing out of it.
Our women nearly all vote, and since in Wyoming as elsewhere the majority of women are good and not bad, the result is good and not evil.
Territorial Governors are appointed, not elected. As U. S. Senator, Mr. Warren has up to the present time (1902) repeatedly given similar testimony. In various chapters of the present volume may be found the strong approval of ex-U. S. Senator Joseph M. Carey.
Most of these Governors were Republicans. Hon. N. L. Andrews (Democrat), Speaker of the Wyoming House of Representatives, said in 1879:
I came to this Territory in the fall of 1871, with the strongest prejudice possible against woman suffrage. The more I have seen of it, the less my objections have been realized, and the more it has commended itself to my judgment and good opinion. Under all my observations it has worked well, and has been productive of much good. The women use the ballot with more independence and discrimination in regard to the qualifications of candidates than men do. If the ballot in the hand of woman compels political parties to place their best men in nomination, this, in and of itself, is a sufficient reason for sustaining woman suffrage.
Ex-Chief Justice Fisher, of Cheyenne, said in 1883:
I wish I could show the people who are so wonderfully exercised on the subject of female suffrage just how it works. The women watch the nominating conventions, and if the Republicans put a bad man on their ticket and the Democrats a good one, the Republican women do not hesitate a moment in scratching off the bad and subst.i.tuting the good. It is just so with the Democratic women. I have seen the effects of female suffrage, and instead of being a means of encouragement to fraud and corruption, it tends greatly to purify elections and give better government.
In 1884 Attorney-General M. C. Brown said in a public letter:
My prejudices were formerly all against woman suffrage, but they have gradually given way since it became an established fact in Wyoming. My observation, extending over a period of fifteen years, satisfies me of its entire justice and propriety.
Impartial observation has also satisfied me that in the use of the ballot women exercise fully as good judgment as men, and in some particulars are more discriminating, as, for instance, on questions of morals.
At another time he said:
I have been asked if women make good jurors, and I answer by saying, that so far as I have observed their conduct on juries, as a lawyer, I find but little fault with them.... They do not reason like men upon the evidence, but, being possessed of a higher quality of intellectuality, i. e., keen perceptions, they see the truth of the thing at a glance. Their minds once settled, neither sophistry, logic, rhetoric, pleading nor tears will move them from their purpose. A guilty person never escapes a just punishment when tried by women juries.
The effect of woman suffrage upon the people of Wyoming has been good. It has been said by one man that open, flagrant acts of bribery are commonly practiced at the polls in Wyoming, and this statement is made to show that the effect of woman suffrage has not been good. The statement is not true. In the last election there were in Cheyenne large sums of money expended to influence the result, and votes were bought on the streets in an open and shameless manner. As U. S. Attorney for the Territory, it became my duty to investigate this matter before a grand jury composed of men. The revelations before the jury were astonishing and many cases of bribery were clearly proven; but while a majority of those composing the jury were men of the highest integrity, there were so many members who had probably taken part in the same unlawful transactions that no indictment could be obtained. The circ.u.mstances attending this election were phenomenal. It would be unjust to the women, however, if I should fail to add that, while it was clearly proven that many men sold their votes, it was strikingly apparent that few if any women, even of the vilest cla.s.s, were guilty of the same misconduct.
The Hon. John W. Kingman, for four years a Judge of the U. S. Supreme Court of Wyoming says:
Woman suffrage was inaugurated in 1869 without much discussion, and without any general movement of men or women in its favor. At that time few women voted. At each election since, they have voted in larger numbers, and now nearly all go to the polls. Our women do not attend the caucuses in any considerable numbers, but they generally take an interest in the selection of candidates, and it is very common, in considering the availability of an aspirant for office, to ask, "How does he stand with the ladies?"
Frequently the men set aside certain applicants for office, because their characters would not stand the criticism of women.
The women manifest a great deal of independence in their preference for candidates, and have frequently defeated bad nominations. Our best and most cultivated women vote, and vote understandingly and independently, and they can not be bought with whiskey or blinded by party prejudice. They are making themselves felt at the polls, as they do everywhere else in society, by a quiet but effectual discountenancing of the bad, and a helping hand for the good and the true. We have had no trouble from the presence of bad women at the polls. It has been said that the delicate and cultured women would shrink away, and the bold and indelicate come to the front in public affairs. This we feared; but nothing of the kind has happened. I do not believe that suffrage causes women to neglect their domestic affairs.
Certainly, such has not been the case in Wyoming, and I never heard a man complain that his wife was less interested in domestic economy because she had the right to vote and took an interest in making the community respectable. The opposition to woman suffrage at first was pretty bitter. To-day I do not think you could get a dozen respectable men in any locality to oppose it.
In 1895 U. S. Senator Clarence D. Clark wrote as follows to the Const.i.tutional Convention of Utah which was considering a woman suffrage plank: