The Montgomery advertiser., 1902-06-17
ROCKY MOUNTAIN WOMEN.
Vigorously Defended by a Citizen
 of Idaho.
GrangeXille. Idaho. June

Grangeville. Idaho, June 1. 1902.
 Editor The Advertiser:
 The Mobile Herald of May 2 contained letter over the signature of Eli P. Smith of The Birmingham News entitled. ''wo- man Suffrage Out West" If could feel that he had met the conditions told of in his letter it would be easy to say that his observations were not com prehensive and that he had judged the whole by the part; but knowing that such state of affairs does not exist in Colo rado, or any other of the Western States. l am forced to combat some of his state ments.
 He says that Colorado Is the only State in the Union where women have been ac- corded by Constitutional amendment. equal suffrage with men. MT Smith said that Colorado. Utah. Wyoming and Idaho are the only States having equal suffrage, for the suffrage laws of these four States are identical.
 He says that womanhood has been eodrsened, cheapened and brutaliZed by the ballot while the end desired-the pu- rification of politics-has not been ac- complished. If the Alabama journalist was as careful of his associates when in Colorado as I would like to believe. he saw nothing to warrant conclusion of that character. there are coarse women in Denver. unfortunately, just as there are coarse men in Birmingham, but there are fewer of them in Denver than in any large city in this country--fewer than they were before the women of Denver were given the right to create a purer political atmosphere in which to live. There Is room for improvement in Amer ican politics, it is true, but the States which deny women the ballot can all take lessons in political purity from these four Rocky Mountain States. where rep resentative government Is given truer interpretation than elsewhere ou this con tnent.
 MT. Smith has seen some women be decked with bloomers and mans coat and hat boldly ride astride down the principal thoroughfares and planes equal suffrage for that. too. Well, if I am not mistaken. that character of riding habit Is a Parisian invention, brought to this country several years ago-and Par sidcrs the proper state of subJection. have seen none of these mannish horse women in Wyoming, Utah or Idaho, for the suffragists of these States still cling to the conventional riding costume. There are some in Denver but l have seen a much larger number of them on Delaware Avenue in Buffalo, Euclid Avenue In Cleveland, the boulevafds of New York and Boston and the Lake front of Chi cago-and these "coarsened. brutaiZed women know nothing about the ballot.
 MT. Smith finds, further, that the wo- man voter has entered practically every pursuit in which man is engaged and of fering her labor at such figure as to cause an actual lowering of wages" If MT. Smith will study the industrial con- ditions of his country from the viewpoint of the Commissioner of Labor or will trouble himself to read the latest census report he will find that thSre are fewer women wage-earners in the equal sYffrage States than elsewhere in the Union, and while doing this he may accidentally dis cover some statistics which will prove to him that there is more child labor and it's consequent industrial misery in the cotton mills of the South than in any other section of this land. l can assure MT smith that the children of the West will remain in school so long as the Wes- tern mother has the ballot.
 But MT Smith has evidently charged up against woman everything in colorado that he doesn't like. He says he found yer. He could have gone further and said that he could find but ten or twelve of both in that city of nearly 100000. while in the East they have become so general that they. no longer inspire com ment but he preferred to leave that out. If Mir Smith visits Denver again and condemns the institution of equal suf- frage because of that city's three lady barbers-who learned their trade In St. Louis-he must not take offense If 'hnacy commission submits him to "croSS- eXamina tion.
 To prove that equal suffrage has failed to purify government. MT. smith points to the fact" that Colorado has the ''so-- riest' gOvel nment of any of the Western States. Since he has anticipated the die tionaries several years in the use of that adjective. ''sorriest." l am not quite sure that the gentleman does not intend compliment, but If he means to say that the Colorado State government Is cor rupt I must challenge his conclusion. The Rocky Mountain States are all as pure as a republican form of government can be made. and if. of the process of evolution. there is ever born a better system. 1t will he largely due to the in- corruptible genius of American woman hood. It is possible for a corrupt politi- clan to be elevated to office in any one of the equal suffrage States but once let be speedily retired to private life.
 MT Smith says that equal suffrage is a failure for the further reason that men break laws designed to promote morality which women have had a hand in plac- ing upon the statute books. l wonder if MT. Smith would have us treat, such ar