The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1894-01-04

How Anelr FRANCHISE came ADou1 anu
Esvw They VIII BE Likely to Use nc.
stump speakers can now say Fellow
citizens in Colorado instead of La
dies and gentlemen for, as Colorado
woman writes to the Chicago Tribune:
we women of Colorado have equal
outrage, or equal suffrage has Us.
haven Y quite figured out which. The
women who came out of the dust and
smoke Of battle with the light of VIC
tory on their faces say we have suffrage
and they ought to know, for they
studied it al UP beforehand and knew
what lit meant-and talk about prima-
ries and polls with an easy familiarity
that IS awe inspiring. But as for the
rest of us-well, we have lots to learn.
OF course we expected to get the right
to vote. but we find that carries
great many other rights that we thought
THE men would BE good enough to at
tend to just as we wanted them to with
out leaving as any bother.
.'It's All the other way. First Of all,
ia the cities we have 10 register under
the Australian ballot law, get under a
measuring machine, have the color of
our eyes determined and our weight
noted and otherwise contribute to the
answering of 40 odd Questions, among
which is the plump, point blank conun-
drum, Flow ola are ycus Distinguish
Ing physical charact eristics also 80
down ia the book One woman naively
told the clerk she was a twin and has
not recovered her good temper yet.
don t know what awful result viii fol-
low if a couple of thousand women are
challenged q week or So before election
by the political machines.
The nest thing is that If women do
net take an interest I'D conventions and
primaries and all that you know, they
viii find their choice restricted TO two
or three men with whose selection they
had nothing TO d. and that does not
seem right. We must Join in the push.
my husband says, while no chuckles
away Unless some Of the dear sisters
arc belied. just the same, the men viii
find out q thing or two. The very day
after election, when it was certain we
had won. the discovery was made that
the wives Of several politicians, one
Of them actually under an assumed
name, were members of the suffrage as
ISOLATION and had begun to swing it for
their parties and Incidentally. no doubt,
their husbands. Several offers of clerk
ships under the new county officers
were made, but to the honor of the
women who did the campaign work not
an offer was accepted, and the attempt
at influencing was exposed at the next
meeting The association adopted a de-
cisive 70 political plaak and took meas
ures for the blackballing Of political
women. We're travelling on a high
plane, I tell you 4 don IL know how it
VIII work AT the primaries but it's
lofty.
Right after election the newspapers
took a wicked delight in pointing out
that since we had become voting citi-
zens we were amenahle to all the duties
Of citizens and voters and would have
to do jury duty and militia duty and I
don't know how many other kinds of
duty Then arose Attorney General
Engley-a very S0lolnon-and dug into
his books and found that, while the
state constitl tuition made no distinction of
SIX, various laws regarding jurors and
the militia contain the word male. which
let's MS out off the work and leaves us all
the fun. Anyway, I IN sure Veil get
along very nicely. even at the primal
rless though I'm certain the men won (
think conventions are conventions at
all if they can't smoke and fight and
raise Old Ned. They have always had a
good deal more row in Denver at the
convention than on election day, and
squad Of deputy sherit1s usually sit on
the beach Of the elect.
How did We carry the election2
Wen, I am blessed If know that
eitheE-whether we carried it at all or
not I IN honestly inclined to believe
that the men gave MS suffrage because
they thought there was no good argu-
ment against 1t and that we ought to
have It, The men of this part OF the
world are big, broad minded fellows,
and hold too, much of. chat old time
western chivalry which made the 15ne
woman the safest of all the creatures in
q rough frontieIatoU 1-tbe spirit which
to this day makes the toughest old
miner ready to fight st q moments no
tice for a woman ia distress. The great
bulk of the vote against suffrage was
cast by men who were not opposed to
having women vote, but who do not
feel that women should mingle IL poll
tics as politics has been. We say, and it
As On our knowledge q the man that we
base our saying. that politics in Colo
RADIO viii hereafter b. other than it has
been, and we VIII be safe in politics as
it VIII bel NO Colorado azsemblage
viii tolerate ruf1tins who VIII insult
women directly or indirectly. You
Wiz find the future showing that I
know whereof I speak. The suffrage
machinery during the campaign was
not very powerful. and # the agitation
really accomplished anything the val
uable engine of ats work was the press.
There was only one newspaper man in
the state who openly opposed suffrage.
Some we've a little lnkewarln and many
said nothing, but the large dailles.
without exception favored suffrage ed
itorially.