The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887, 1874-10-30
NUMBER 10.
How Much Of a Joke ?

! The Allegan Journal, after referring
| to the establishment of Woman Suffrage
in Wyoming Territory as n 'joke and
an advertisement" says that Michigan
does not propose to perpetrate any such
/ joke in November next.
Now we would like TO show the Jour
nal Just to what extent the establish
ment of Woman Suffrage in Wyoming
was joke, aud by whom the joke was
perpetrated. In 1869 the Legislature of
| Wyoming was unanimously Democrat
ic. The women of the Territory pre-
sented to that body petition asking for
the right of suffrage. Some member Of
the Legislature, wishing to treat the
matter with ridicule, and knowing the
| Governor to be bitterly opposed to
/ Woman Suffrage, proposed to pass bill
granting the petition as an annoyance
to the Governor, whom they had not the
/ least doubt would veto ii. But they
were astonished aud disappointed at the
result of their joke, for Governor Camp
bell, instead of vetOing the bill, signed
I ii and made it o law. Before the meet
/ ing of the next biennial session of the
/ Legislature, Woman Suffrage had made
! terrible inroads on the strength of the
/ Democratic party, and instead of a
unanimous Legislature they could not
muster a two-thirds majority. Natu-
rally displeased with this effect of the
women's vote, they attempted to repeal
the law, but the Governor promptly We
| toed their repeating bill, and Republic
can members sustained the veto. Gov
ernor Campbell says the reason why he
would not consent to the repeal of the
/ law was, that after observing its effect
upon the politics of the Territory, he
I TrO,I or1.
good, could come of it. The Republican
party in Wyoming owes its existence
| largely to the votes of women. The
Democratic party, including in its ranks
the very worst specimens of pioneer So
ciety, naturally disliked the stringent
execution of the law which Woman
| Suffrage initiated, and took the earliest
/ opportunity to attempt its overthrow.
! a Republican newspaper protesting
the honesty of purpose the Allegan
Journal does, should be the last in the
world to misrepreseut, slur and defame
the noble women of Wyoming.
The assertion made by the journal
that "the women of Michigan are salts
fled with the position their sex has Oc-
cupied for ali ages' is too nonsensical to
deserve notice. We only ask our Co
temporary to compare the women of
Will liOoC VI Delob ages dlih
see if they occupy exactly. the same
sphere.
The attempt made by the Journal tC
hold up Mrs. Woodruff and few of hel
confederates as representatives of the
Woman Suffrage element is simply
slanderous. They are no more the rep
resentatives of the suffrage element
than John Morrissey and hundreds OF
other brutes in human form who oppose
Woman Suffrage, are representatives Oi
the opposition. Mrs. Woodruff and heI
clique are despised by the noble band OF
Woman Suffragists who are now asking
from the people of Michigan fair con-
sideration of this important subject.
From good authority we are prepared Ia
say that Mrs. Woodruff would rejoice
to see the Suffrage Amendment defeated
i'm Michigan this fail. She claims that
the cause has been wrested from the
hands of its rightful champions, and
that it has become a religious move
ment which she abhors.
The women who have the cause of the
present campaign at heart are ladies of
the highest respectability and intellect
ual accomplishments ladies against
whose characters the editor of the Jour
nal does not dare to breathe a word of
reproach. They do not ask the men of
the State to give them the ballot as a
joke, but as a right to which they are
entitled as the equal of their brothers
and husbands. AS to the effect of
Woman Suffrage let the Journal man
peruse the following words of Governor
Campbell:
II think that as large a proportion of
women vote in this Territory as of men,
and / believe that these women vote
fully as intelligently and with as high a
sense of their responsibility as the men.
There is no apparent impropriety in
their exercise of the right. They are
not as much crowded ard jOstled at the
polls as they would be in Detroit COM
ing from a crowded theater or lecture
room. have yet to hear of the first
case of woman being insulted at the
polls. At the first election the proper
tion of women that voted was not so
great, but the number has been increas-
ing with each succeeding year, until
now there are but few who do not do
their whole duty in this respect. In
short, what Gradgrind would call the
"hard facts" demolish the theories upon
which the opponents of Universal Suf-
frage base their arguments.-W WOmdn'S
Journal.