The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-12-26

in Denver. prominently engaged in poli- tics, have not only lowered their own standards; they have lowered also the standards of the less fortunate, the less protected women of the tenements, who so sadly need, not only aid which Is not self seeking. but. as leaders in public affairs. women whom they may revere. | "One must secure votes," I was told agaIn and again by women in Denver to whom I spoke regarding this unlovely method of securing even one vote. Would you have them bought with moneyT' was frequently asked. No other manner of obtaining the polit- ical support of the poor was even remote ly suggested. Ten years is but a brief period of time. Perhaps at the end of twenty years new method may be evolved. Today the less favored women of Denver are skeptical with regard to the single -mindedness of those more for tunate women who offer them friendship; and of these women who have help to give, many-too many-give 1t. as their | friends are the first to admit, with dual motives. These women may or may not thave hurt the city of Denver and the 1 State of Colorado;. but themselves-have they not wounded themselves very deep | ly with the weapon which they have chosen to wield?
 l Also, by perverting the most tender of human feelings to a hard and practicable political use, they have become less fitted to guide the children growing to manhood and womanhood in their State. I was present one day when a large group of children learned an unconsciously taught political lesson.
 l I was visiting. an orphan asylum in Denver, in company with many other persons. Among these was a woman deeply and unselhshly concerned in pub lie charities. As We went into one of the rooms In which children of various ages were gathered, she impulsively took a little fatherless and motherless tears in her eyes.
 | How sweet she is with that baby!" said to a woman standing near me. "Yes," replied the woman, with a sudden accession of interest and curl osty. ''she is And hadn't supposed she was looking for a new off1ce."
 l A number of older children were so near us that they overheard these words. They looked at the speaker, then at the woman holding the baby; then they smil- ed knowingly. l Until went to Colorado I had sup posed that, whether women should or should not have the ballot, women who desired that ballot desired 1t because with 1t they believed they could be more eff hcient in public affairs than without it.. | This found to be by no means invaria- ply true of the women suffragists, whom | I met in Colorado. I conversed with one woman who has frequently, both in her | State and elsewhere. been mentioned to me by prominent suffragists as one of the national leaders in the movement. She said much that was very interesting l and clever regarding the equal suffrage movement-which she told me she re- garded as a sacred cause" Knowing | that I was interested in labor reforms. she recounted to me the many ways in which a woman might employ her ballot fin the interest, of such reforms. Strikes | for example, v she said. Had women in l Pennsylvania had the ballot, the coal strike might have been avoided"
 The next day the newspapers bore 1 headlines announcing the strike at the smelting works in Colorado City. I im- mediately went. to Colorado City, and l through the kindness Ofa a school teach CT made the acquaintance Of the wives of several of the strikers They were unanimous in declaring that the votes of women in Colorado, whatever such votes might do in Pennsylvania, had in no appreciable measure helped to settle labor difficulties.
 One of these women, whose husband was closely involved in the strike, asked him to give me his opinion of the mat 1 ter. He reflected for moment, and then he observed pointing out the win dow as he spoke to the military encamp- ment at the foot of PilSe's Peak. Two hundred and fifty armed soldiers is camp Ein' out wonder; there's a report that the strikers in goin' to blow up the smelters with dynamite; there's a hint that Grip pie Creek is goin to strike too; the Gov l ernors comin' over to arbitrate. All them things Is happenin', but how many wom- | en has been over from Denver to look round and get ideas on how to vote so as to stop strikes? There ain't been one. "
 This was his opinion and his entire opinion. After giving it he went again down to the village street, leaving me alone with his wife.
 Some of the women in Denver will perhaps come later" said to her.
 She smiled a trifle cynically, but said nothing. I was in Colorado City once each day, and occasionally twice. dur ing the first distinctly exciting and gravely important week of the strike at the smelting works No women came from Denver.
 Why do none of than come?" I ask ed the man who had So succinctly de-
 
 '"They ain't got no personal feelin' bout it, he replied; its too far off,"
 "It is In their own State" returned. Each ono Of them can cast vote af- fectiHs the entire State"
 "Oh, yes" he assented; but that ain't what they'd call a personal feelin'. It don't touch them; it only concerns us over here.'
 When I suggested that a personal feel ing in this very direction might not be impossible on the part of the women voters in Denver. the wife Of the striker said slowly: No; but it ain't probable. Politics ain't run that way"
 Not even when women are in them?" I questioned.
 No" said the woman.
 Women don't change politics as much as politics changes women," put in her 1 husband.
 The longer I remained in Colorado, the more truly did this remark seem to de- scribe the result in that State of the use of the ballot by women.
 That large public affairs are considered of moment by the women of Colorado is unquestionably true; but that these wo' men are more absorbed in the ballot it. self than in the public service they may render by means of that ballot would seem also to be true. I found that women in Colorado accepted with difficulty, or not at all, the theory that a woman could