Cayton's weekly. [volume] (Seattle, Wash.) 1916-1921, 1920-03-06
THE NEW WOMAN'S VOTE

A contributor to the Pictorial Review in
a well written article of much length dis
cussed the effect the seventeen million newly
enfranchised female vote of this country
had the following to say about the vote Of
the colored women in the South, who are per
mitted to exercise the right of suffrage:
There are some straws to show which way
the wind is blowing. In Tennessee, where
municipal suffrage has recently been grant
ed, women have accomplished great things
with their vote In Memphis, whose city gov
eminent was not Of the variety Of which
women in general approve, Citizens Nom
Partisan League nominated ticket to OPP
pose the machine" and the women voters
elected the ticket Prominent women opened
their beautiful homes for registration places,
as they have done in California, and the
whole matter of holding an election was
placed on different basis. Mrs. Harriet
Taylor Upton, President Of the Ohio Stuff
rage Association says that when men in the
past have opened their campaigns they have
had bands and fireworks and sometimes a
little lady falling from balloon with
parachute to enthJse the voters. The new
voters demand not bands, but lower prices,
and the political party which seriously rea-
Lies this will be the successful party Of the
future. Memphis women had no bands, but
they worked early and Late and they won.
One woman told me that her husband came
to her and said, ct must vote this ticket for
business reasons and she answered. 81
must vote against that ticket for higher than
business reasons, and she did.
In Nashville the most interesting thing
was the way in which the better class of
negro women stood by the white women and
voted with them for the men whom they be-
lieved would do most for the city.
Tennessee had been having her share Of
the old anti argument based on the alleged
''menace of the negro women s vote, but IN
Nashville the white women found that the
negro women Of the better classes helped
them to, save the day. Prominent negro
ranks and it was understood before the
election that certain needed reforms were to
be carried out if victory could be secured.
Accordingly, there are now negro nurses
in the city hospital where formerly white
nurses were required to nurse negro patients.
Both negroes and whites sought this reform
and there is also in Nashville now negro
pOliceWoman One Of the demands made by
the negro women was for negro on the
Motion Picture Board Of Censors. The
claim is made and sustained, that the pic
lures shown in the theatres for colOred peo-
pie were of the lowest type.
It is true that in Nashville there are
great many of the better class Of negroes, as
Fiske Unevirsity, the great institution for
the education Of the negro, is located there.
But there were evidences that it was not only
the educated negro women who helped. An
old ignorant negro woman went to see one
of the suffrage leaders, She had heard that
the women were going to vote and she wanted
to know about it. She said she had owned
her little home "down dar in de alley" for
nineteen years, and that she had been paying
taxes to the "white folks'' for all those
years. "Gawd said, let der be light, she
said, "But, Miss May, you knows Pain
nary light in dat alley-de white folks ain