The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1895-01-25

paid her, as in the drawing room or at
The opera. I feel more pride than ever
in American manhood and American
womanhood since seeing these gamer
lngs on Tuesday, where American men
and women of all classes ana conultlons
met in their own neighborhood to per-
form with duty and dignity the selectlon
OF their own rulers, and to give their APP
proval to the principles to guide sucn
onclals when chosen. NO woman was
less in dignity or sweetness OF woman
hood after such participation In puol1c
duties, and l do not believe there is Il
man OF sensibility in Colorado today VINO
does not love his wife, daughter, sister
or mother the more.
Election morning the women, lnstea9
OF having no interest in politics. as had
always been said, were first at the polls.
From my window in the nome OF
friend l was visiting l could see ons
voting place. The polls opened at Z
O'Clock. By $50 twenty women and
fourteen men were in line waiting for the
first chance to vote. All the time other
voters kept rapidly coming, nearly every
man coming with his wife, and the most
of the men coming with two or more
women, often the wife and daughter,
frequently wife, daughter and mother.
1t was rare at this poll, or any other.
that women came together or without
woman approaching the polls alone. In
stead families seemed to come together,
and the men seemed proud of bringing
all their family of voting age to act with
them in performing the most important
duty of American citizenship.
On Capitol Hill, the home of the
thriftisr classes of people, the families
went in groups precisely as they go to
church or theatre, and the women seemed
as much at ease in this as in other places
although l did not see woman's face
going to or coming from the polls that
did not bear in it the new light of new
and smiling dignity. There was in every
woman's face a token of new strength
and larger self reliance. I had the pleas
ure of going with kinsman to the polls,
a woman of as much refinement and deli
cacy as any woman in civilization could
possess, and there was nothing in it at
all to jar her In the least, or to make me
W ish she was not voter. There is more
chance of lady seeing or hearing some
thing unpleasant in passing through
crowd to the average theatre or opera
than there was in this lady or in any
lady going to these voting places yester-
day.
Young women who looked too young to
vote, and who demurely protested. to
the gallant challenge of some judge or
clerk that they were not old enough for
voters, that they were in fact more than
old enough, young looking and beautiful
matrons voting with their daughters,
beside them, silver haired grandmothers,
with the light in their faces of new JOY
coming in old age to them, all mingled
together agreea bly,, and made it an &C.
casion of pleasure. All of them were as
much ladies in this sovereign act OF citi-
zenship as in dispensing gracious hospl-
tality in their own homes.
1ko1 10 10
enced in politics was the fact that, the
through the vigilance of the women,
polls were crowded at the start and kept
crowded until all the votes had been
cast, with the result that eighty, and
in some cases niney-fve per cent. of the
votes were polled before noon.
1t must be remem bered, too, by the
skeptical people in the East, who shall
read of women voting in Colorado, and
who may dismiss it all as being the &C
ton merely of women on the frontiers,
that the people of this State are largely
from the Eastern States themselves, and
that the women here are as refined and
accomplished and well educated as in any
city or State in the East Indeed the
choicest families of the nation have con-
tributed to this State. and also to Wyom-
ing, their best of blood and culture
their younger people coming here looking
for chance in the world, and many and
many thousand others sending their in
valid mem bers here to find in the sun
shine and golden air of this altitude res
toration to health. Thus the test OF wo-
man suffrage in Denver and Colorado and
and Wyoming is complete and intelligent
a test as it would be in Boston or Brook
lyn, and as complete test of the Ques-
tion of intelligence as voters, and of re-
finement as women.
Good women are in the majority. Con-
trary to the popular theory of those who
have always sueered at what they have
have voted in much larger proportion
than the bad. Practically all the good
women have voted, while less then ten.
per cent of the others voted, or even del
sired to do SO.
In one precinct $50 women of the red,
as the local phrase designates them here,
were registered, and only twelve of them
voted.
The more refined circles of the great
city of Denver have given effectual
deGial to the stock Argument of the
ants, that good women would not vote
if they had the chance, and that they
would be afraid to vote or incur the
publicity of voting, even ii they were
enfranchised and personally DESTROYS of
voting. They and the other women of
Colorado have also completely disposed
of the other stock argument that women,
if they should vote at all would vote
headlong and impulsiyely. For they
were as deli 5erate here as the men, and
as we'll posted on all the issues.
Indeed Colorado in this election has
left very little of good argument for its
sincere opponents to urge against suff-
rage. So nearly all of everything having
any good sense in it all has been dis
proved here, that the opposition is left
with very few weapons in their armory,
and all Of them weak. Of course thous-
ands, and even millions, of sincere people
will move slowly from the, conservatism
of the ages, and will only come to it inch
by inch, under the compulsion of s'tate
by State adopting woman suffrage.
Those who are far away from these in
teIligent States which are giving the de-
parture fair and candid trial, and which
are doing SO fully conscious that the
older States look upon it with distrust,
will not be convinced of the truth as
rapidly as those who have seen it in
actual operation, and who have seen
women becoming voters without losing
any of their charm or loneliness as wom-
en-. But it is coming everywhere.
Of course there is left the old weather.