Great Falls tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1921-current, 1922-08-21
THE DIGESTS STRAW VOTE

THE ten million straw vote or
1 prohibition and soldiers bonu.
taken by the Literary Digest has
now passed the seven hundred
thousand mark without much
change in the percentage between
wet and dry or bonus or no bonus
since the first installment of 1oo,.
900 was announced. On the sol.
diers' bonus bill the noes number
356, 167 and the affirmative vote is
/, 344, 1872. Several times the major
ity in the soldiers bonus has swung
slightly to side or the other
and has never been more than a
fraction of l per cen one way or
the other. 1t looks as though SEN
timent on this question was about
evenly divided. 1t is rather a curl
Gus fact that the wet voters are
more strongly in favor of the SOL
diers' bonus than the dry voters.
| The whole vote now stands as fol-
lows:
Those in favor of the continu-
ance and strict enforcement of the
Eighteenth amendment and the
Volstead act. 271o54. Those in IA
vor of a modification of the Vol
stead act to permit light wines and
beer, 2eo,17z.
Those in favor of repeating the
prohibition amendment, 1860.
OF course, if the prohibition
amendment to the constitution was
repealed. light wines and beer could
be sold so far as federal law went,
so that it is fair to count both these
last two against the VOL
stead act and bone dryness. They
are both wet voters. That would
give 436,851 wet votes against
27l,o54 dry votes.
One of the most interesting fea-
lures of the last installment of this
straw ballot is that the full returns
from a poll of 2,2o0,0 900 exclusively
women votes have been coming in.
These votes are mailed to a list of
women taken from the voting or
registration lists of the country at
random and divided as to states so
as to be fairly representative of
the whole country. There have been
received so far 2l,467 replies.
These ballots are a trifle wetter
than the general returns. These
latter were names and addresses
taken from telephone directory
books, with a few factories added.
There we're four of these factories
SO far. These factory votes were
the wettest of all, though they in
cluded a good many women. The
vote in these four factories was:
For enforcement, III; for modifi-
cation in favor of light wines and
beer, 4.e4o; for repeal OF amend
ment, 2,570. The exclusively wom-
en- vote showed the following re-
suits: For enforcement of amend
ment and Volstead act, 1868; for
light wines and beer, 8,575; for re-
peal Of the prohibition amendment,
5,52e. The women also voted for
the soldiers bonus, 1867 tor and
$3.50 against. The votes cast by
the women came mostly from the
eastern states, as there was not
time to get replies from the states
far away. W. would, therefore,
expect that when the votes come in
from the middle west and the south.
where the dry sentiment is strong
er, the dryness of the women's
vote would increase.
The general count in Montana
was for a long time light, but II is
beginning to mount up now. There
are 1851 votes registered from
Montana. OF these. 1921 are for
enforcement, 2,162 for light wines
and beer, 818 for repeal. The whole
Rocky mountain division is wet In
every cas- The states are Mon
tana, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado,
New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Ne
vada. The totals in these states