The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1911-01-20
charges was asked to examine con-

give further results. For exam
pie; Indiana, where women do no
vote, has just passed the model mar
riage law of the country. 1t provide
for the examination by a physician
of both bride and bridegroom befor
license shall be issued, 1t is a Law
which women would naturally be ex
pected to favor. 1t was passed pri
marly in the interests of women.
| did not come from a State where
women vote. 1t has not been ever
suggested for passage in any of thu
four woman suffrage States.
Illinois has just passed law regu
lating the practice of obstetrics will
the aim of preventing the recen
alarming growth of blindness among
babies. In not one of the four States
where women have vote is there
such a law.
Massachusetts and New Jersey
have taken deliberate stand against
the installment furniture evil. In
Colorado and Utah the political wo-
men apparently do not konw that
there Is such thing. Yet the wives
with small incomes in Salt Lake and
Denver are as much oppressed by
1t as they are in the East, where,
without voting directly, women have
influenced the Legislatures to abate
the evil.
Idaho, where women have voted
for fourteen years. is the only State
i'll tn Union lacking a law to compel
railroads to provide suitable segre-
gated toilet-rooms for women and
children.
Eight of the Eastern States have
recently passed laws abolishing the
common-law marriage. This is per-
haps the most important step posi-
BILE toward the conservation of the
home. Colorado, Idaho and Wyo-
ming, where women vote, have no.
passed such law.
| asked woman legislator why
none of these laws had either been
or copied in the woman
suffrage States. "Oh," she replied,
I'VE don't believe in fad legislation.
Women were Promised Higher Wages
One of the strongest promises
made by the advocates for votes
for women" is that if suffrage were
given them by the men they would
have the weapon in their hands that
would compel men to pay women
higher wages.
My next investigation was to see
low this promise had been fulfilled
n the four States where women had
voted fourteen, fifteen, sixteen and
orty-one years.
You can hire plenty of girl stenog-
'aphers just out of school, in Denver
ind Salt Lake City, for IS and Sc a
week. This ratio of male to female
,reenest boy for less than $3.50 a
7eek. This ration of mael to female
wages extends pretty generally
throughout the scale of skilled labor. |
The cashgirls and salesgirls of
hese two cities are paid exactly the |
anne as similar girls are paid in the
apartment stores of Chicago. And |
costs more to live in Denver or
alt Lake City than it does in Chica-
o.
In the four States where women
ote there are comparatively few
iris in domestic service, and domes-
les are much in demand, but great
$ the demand is the Swedish and
orwegian hired girls get from SIS
$25 each month where the Jap
nese "boy" gets from $25 to $40 a
lonth.
Newspaper women are paid less
ian newspaper men, just as they are
the East. One curious fact must
J noted in this connection; among
lie newspaper women of Denver !
'und that two out of every three
d not believe in woman suffrage. [
ne Woman Says Suffrage is Hind
rance.
In none of the four States did !
Id woman in executive manage 8
ent of corporation. There are no (
omen real-estate operators or pro- t
otors. did not even find a woman q
shier of bank, though I enquired /
r one t
In school-teaching it is the same
in the East. The grades are II
ught by women, the high schools
ID universities largely by men, d
nile theprincipals are, nine times n
It of ten, men. And the men are I
i'd more than the women! h
In Denver there are eight women b
torneys, or one to every twenty y