The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1912-02-03
WHAT WOMEN ARE DOING
Nearly a Million to Vote for
 Our Next President
A 1912 Factor to Be .RecIzoned With More Than Usual Plurality of Presidents-Women of Wyoming Have Been Voting for 4S Years California Direct Vote.

In six States of the Union the hand that rocks the cradle will do its share as the hand that writes the ballot in the coming national election. It has been variousIy estimated that from a million to a million and a half women will have a voice in the choosing of the next President of the United States.
 In the six States where they will vote in November they constitute somewhat less than one-half of the total voting population. A recent quotation from the census report is authority for the statement that men rapidly than women, due to the 1arg- CT number of men immigrants. The excess male population is fixed at g. 900, 900. In the Western States men are not so much in the maojrity, how ever, as they were in earlier pioneer days. Moreover. it seems to be very generally conceded that women reg ister and vote in larger proportion vote, therefore at approximately half the entire voting population of the six States where the eternal feminine's in-
 1uence is direct" would not be far wrong.
 Estimating Washington's total vot- ing population inclusive of the new woman vote at 450,OOO, Idaho's at 125,- 900, Wyoming's at 50,00O Utah's at 15O,- 900, Colorado's at 100000 and Caflfor- nia's Qnclusive of the woman vote) at 800, GOO, we have an aggregate of nearly two million voters in the six States. Possibly the fairest estimate would fix the quota of women voters at about 800, 900, an army sufficiently consider able to cause the newspapers of the country to put it in the category of factors to be reckoned with,'' as the campaign opens. It is more than tre It counts in its ranks more women than were in the whole thirteen colo nies in the momentous year 1776.
 ONE-THIRD TOTAL VOTE.
 It is, despite the fact that the Unit ed States is sometimes called slow of third of the women voters of the wo~ld the other two-thirds being in Austra- lia, Finland. Norway and New Zea- land. It is more than the usual Pres idential plurality, and if the eight hundred thousand voted solidly they might decide the Presidency
 However, the women will not vote solidly, any more than men will vote solidly. Women are human beings before they are women, and as human beings they have shown that they have of principles just as men have About the most that can be said as generally indicative of women's solidarity In politics is that they have a tendency to break away from party lines, to choose the man rather than the par ty, and that. in their politics, as In their industrial economies, they have unconsciously made another proving of the biological law under which the fe- male of all species operates as the up- builder and conserver of life. Their political activity has been almost rfn- iformly constructive, and the results of that activity have been almost uni formly reflected in legislation direct ly re'ated to the welfare of the home and the family child-labor Ia ws, school laws, and industrial laws that concern women.
 The exercise of the voting privilege in 1912 will be no novelty to the wom- en of Wyoming, where they have been voting since 1869, the franchise having been bestowed upon them a. year af- ter the organization of the Territory. When the Territory became a State In 1890, woman suffrage wass written n the Constitution. Wyoming women have exactly the same political sfgnl- ficance that men have, and, according cent. of them make the most of it, registering and voting dutifully. They often sit jurors and serve as jus tices of the peace; and they are often nominated ias School Superintendents and yet oftener as City Treasurers.
 NINETEEN YEARS EXPERIENCE. Nor are the women of Colorado nov ices at voting in Presidential electio~s. It was back in 1893 that they were enfranchised, so that they have been voting for Presidents, when opportun- ity has offered, for nineteen years. Utah women voted when the State was still a Territory. The Territory became a State in 1896, and the right of women to vote was established in the Constitution. A woman has once been elected to the Senate in Utah, and several have served in the House cast their fifth Presidential votes this