Pierre weekly free press. (Pierre, S.D.) 1889-19??, 1916-09-28
suFfRAClsTS CERTAIN
or DEMOCRATS HELP
Leaders Resent Efforts to Have
Them Support Hughes.
WON BY WILSON'S SPEECH.

a Have Come Here to Fight WITH
You,' He Tells National Convention.
Wilson Voted For Suffrage; Has
HughesT' Mrs. Graham OF Idaho
Asks.
Western women who have had the
ballot equally with the men for several
years resent the interference OF one of
the factions of s~uffragists and the at
tempt to turn the suffrage cause into
an adjunct of the Republican party.
They believe they know how to vote
and they refuse to turn against the
Democrats, who have done so much for
their cause in their respective states.
This attitude is brought out clearly
in an interview by NiXola Greeley
Smith. nationally prominent as a writer
on the staff of the New York World,
with Mrs. Alexander Thompson, Dem
ocratic natioaal committeeman from
oregon, and Mrs. Theresa NJ. Graham
of Occur d'Alene, Ida.
"0ne would think" observed Mrs.
Thompson TO Miss Grecley-Smith, that
If any instruction IN suffrage matters
had to be given it would come from
the wome who have won the vote
and do vote rather than from sulfra
glsts i'm the east, who are still disfran-
chised. | am a young woman, but /
have been through three campaigns for
the vote in Oregon. In Che final cam
paign we won through the co-opera
ton and help and belief i'll Us of the
men of Oregon.
Aided by Democrats.
eve have been voting only five
years, and we are still grateful to our
men. SO when the Congressional I'm
ion sent speakers to Oregon to tell us
TO vote against all Democrats we laugh
ed at them, Why, at the last election
they campaigned against George E.
Chamberlain, who introduced the first
suffrage bill in Oregon and who had
been the friend of the women all
through their fifteen years FIGHT"
81 agree with every word that Mrs,
Thompson has spoken declared Mrs.
Graham, proxy member of the Motif
cation committee from Idaho. THE
conditions in my state are the same as
in Oregon. except that we have had
the vote for twenty years, and it was
given TO us without our having to fight
for it. The Congressional Union has
speakers in Idaho now urging us to
slaughter the Democrats and free our
sisters in the east. How silly that is!
Arc women in the east so foolish as to
be led away by the mere declaration
of a candidate, unsupported by his
party, that he's personally in favor of
a federal amendment?
"Woodrow Wilson voted for suffraue.
Has Charles f. Hughes ever voted for
suffrage? Wilson has done everything
consistent with a belief in state riahts.
one of the fundamental principles of
Democracy. Suffrage can never win as
a PARTISAN issue. ALLEVIATE the Demo-
Gratis en- masse and you have killed ev-
cry chance suffrage has,
Won by Wilson's Speech.
1t is admitted by s~uffragists that
their cause has been helped greatly by
the speech President Wilson made be.
fore the convention of the National
Woman Suffrage association at Allan.
tic City on Sept. s. When the presi
dent told them he had come here to
fight with you" the 1000 suffragists
gathered In Nixon's theater arose and
checred him enthusiastically.
This pledge by the president led Mrs
Carrie Chapman Gait, president of the
association, to say: