The National Woman's Party, whose support Mr. Hughes got by his declaration in favor of the Anthony amendment, made a hard campaign to array the woman vote of California for him, but it was a failure. It only spurred the Democratic women of California to make an equally hard countercampaign, and the women voted on other issues than that of woman suffrage. The Woman's Party leaders, of course, refuse to admit that their campaign was a failure and assert that the majority for Wilson in California would have been much larger, but for their efforts, and that they saved Oregon for Hughes. Doris Stevens, the California manager of the Woman's Party, asserts that the party forced the Democracy to the defensive on suffrage. The Democratic women in that State however hold that the Woman's Party is routed, because it failed to convince the women voters that suffrage was the paramount issue and that the President should be rebuked for failing to endorse the Federal amendment.
Women seem to have played in Kansas's somewhat the same role they played in California.
Approximately 250,000 women out of a total Kansas vote of 625,000 cast their ballots. It is estimated that fully 70,000 Republican women in Kansas voted for Wilson in fear of war in the event of Hughes's election. No amount of argument could shake Kansas women from this belief. Another powerful argument is swaying the Kansas women toward Wilson was a thing that was intended to have quite the opposite effect. This was the special train of women boosters for Hughes which went out from New York City.