The History of Woman Suffrage Volume IV Part 157

So far as the operation of the law in this State is concerned, we were so well satisfied, with twenty years' experience under the Territorial government, that it went into our const.i.tution with but one dissenting vote, although many thought that such a section might result in its rejection by Congress. If it does nothing else it fulfils the theory of a true representative government, and in this State, at least, has resulted in none of the evils prophesied. It has not been the fruitful source of family disagreements feared. It has not lowered womanhood. Women do generally take advantage of the right to vote, and vote intelligently. It has been years since we have had trouble at the polls--quiet and order, in my opinion, being due to two causes, the presence of women and our efficient election laws. One important feature I might mention, and that is, in view of the woman vote, no party dare nominate notoriously immoral men, for fear of defeat by that vote. Regarding the adoption of the system in other States I see no reason why its operation should not be generally the same elsewhere as it is with us. It is surely true that after many years' experience, Wyoming would not be content to return to the old limits, as, in our opinion, the absence of ill results is conclusive proof of the wisdom of the proposition.

In 1896 the Hon. H. V. S. Groesbeck, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, thus summed up the results of twenty-seven years' experience:

1. Woman suffrage has been weighed and not found wanting. Adopted by a statute pa.s.sed by the first legislative a.s.sembly of the Territory, in 1869, and approved by the Governor, it has continued without interruption and with but one unsuccessful demand for the repeal of the law. The const.i.tutional convention which a.s.sembled in 1889 adopted the equal suffrage provision and refused to submit the question to a separate vote by a large majority. The continuance of the measure for nearly a quarter of a century, and the determination to incorporate it in the fundamental law, even at the risk of failing to secure Statehood, are the strongest arguments of its benefit and permanency.

2. It has tended to secure good nominations for the public offices. The women as a cla.s.s will not knowingly vote for incompetent, immoral or inefficient candidates.

3. It has tended to make the women self-reliant and independent, and to turn their attention to the study of the science of government--an education that is needed by the mothers of the race.

4. It has made our elections quiet and orderly. No rudeness, brawling or disorder appears or would be tolerated at the polling booths. There is no more difficulty or indelicacy in depositing a ballot in the urn than in dropping a letter in the post office.

5. It has not marred domestic harmony. Husband and wife frequently vote opposing tickets without disturbing the peace of the home. Divorces are not as frequent here as in other communities, even taking into consideration our small population.

Many applicants for divorces are from those who have a husband or wife elsewhere, and the number of divorces granted for causes arising in this State are comparatively few.

6. It has not resulted in uns.e.xing women. They have not been office-seekers. Women are generally selected for county superintendents of the schools--offices for which they seem particularly adapted, but they have not been applicants for other positions.

7. Equal suffrage brings together at the ballot-box the enlightened common sense of American manhood and the unselfish moral sentiment of American womanhood. Both of these elements govern a well-regulated household, and both should sway the political destinies of the entire human family. Particularly do we need in this new commonwealth the home influence at the primaries and at the polls. We believe with Emerson that if all the vices are represented in our politics, some of the virtues should be.

In 1902 Justice Corn, of the State Supreme Court, made the following public statement:

Women of all cla.s.ses very generally vote. Bad women do not obtrude their presence at the polls, and I do not now remember ever to have seen a distinctively bad woman casting her vote.

Woman suffrage has no injurious effect upon the home or the family that I have ever heard of during the twelve years I have resided in the State. It does not take so much of women's time as to interfere with their domestic duties, or with their church or charitable work. It does not impair their womanliness or make them less satisfactory as wives and mothers. They do not have less influence, or enjoy less respect and consideration socially.

My impression is that they read the daily papers and inform themselves upon public questions much more generally than women elsewhere.

Woman suffrage has had the effect almost entirely to exclude notoriously bad or immoral men from public office in the State.

Parties refuse to nominate such men upon the distinct ground that they can not obtain the women's vote.

The natural result of such conditions is to increase the respect in which women are held, and not to diminish it. They are a more important factor in affairs, and therefore more regarded. It is generally conceded, I think, that women have a higher standard of morality and right living than men. And, as they have a say in public matters, it has a tendency to make men respect their standard, and in some degree attempt to attain it themselves.

I have never been an enthusiastic advocate of woman suffrage as a cure for all the ills that afflict society, but I give you in entire candor my impressions of it from my observations in this State.

In 1889, after women in Wyoming had very generally exercised the full suffrage since 1869, Mrs. Clara B. Colby, editor of the _Woman's Tribune_, Was.h.i.+ngton, D. C., compiled a report from the census statistics. Those relating to crime, insanity and divorce were as follows:

The population of the United States has increased in the last decade 24.6 per cent. That of Wyoming has increased 127.9 per cent. But while the number of criminals in the whole United States has increased 40.3--an alarming ratio far beyond the increase of population--notwithstanding the immense increase of population in Wyoming, the number of criminals has not increased at all, but there has been a relative decrease, which shows a law-abiding community and a constantly improving condition of the public morals. In 1870 there were confined in the jails and prisons of Wyoming 74 criminals, 72 men and 2 women. The census of 1880 shows the same number of criminals, 74, as against an average number of criminals in the other Western States of 645.

This remarkable fact is made more interesting because the 74 in 1890 are all men, and thus the scarecrow of the vicious women in politics disappears. Wyoming being the only State in which the per cent. of criminal women has decreased, it is evident that the morals of the female part of the population improve with the exercise of the right of suffrage.

There were 189,503 insane in the United States, but there were but three insane persons in Wyoming in 1880, all men. The preponderance of insanity among married women is usually attributed to the monotony of their lives, and since this is much relieved by their partic.i.p.ation in politics we should naturally expect to find, as a physical effect, a decreased proportion of insane women where woman suffrage prevails.

From 1870 to 1880 the rate of divorce increased in the United States 79.4 per cent., three times the ratio of the increase of population, and in the group of Western States, omitting, Wyoming, it increased 436.7 per cent., almost four times the average increase of population, while in Wyoming the average increase in divorce was less than 50 per cent. of that of the population.

Compare Wyoming with a typical Eastern State--Connecticut--the latter has one insane person to every 363 of the population, Wyoming has one to every 1,497. Nor is this wholly a difference of East and West, for Idaho, its neighbor, shows one insane to every 1,029. Especially would voting seem to increase the intelligence of women, for in Connecticut there are over seven-tenths as many female idiots as there are male idiots, while in Wyoming there are only four-tenths as many.

Woman suffrage may have played no part in these statistics, but if they had shown an _increase_ of crime, insanity and divorce, it certainly would have been held responsible by the world at large.

NEW YORK.

The History is indebted to Attorney-General John C. Davies for most of the information on School Suffrage contained in the New York chapter, and also for the opinion which follows herewith on the right of women in that State to hold office.

By the Consolidated School Law it is provided, as regarding School Commissioners, that "No person shall be deemed ineligible to such office by reason of s.e.x, who has the other qualifications as herewith provided;" and regarding common school districts, it is provided that "Every district officer must be a resident of his district and qualified to vote at its meetings." As certain women are qualified to vote in any common school district, such women are thus eligible to any _district_ office, including the offices of trustee, clerk, collector, treasurer or librarian.

A similar provision in reference to union free schools, that "No person shall be eligible to hold any school district office in any union free school district unless he or she is a qualified voter in such district and is able to read and write," permits women to hold office as members of the board of education and other district offices.

Aside from Chapter 214 of the Laws of 1892, which has been held to be unconst.i.tutional, I know of no provision of law extending school suffrage to women in _cities_, except that charters of certain third cla.s.s cities have extended to women tax-payers the right to vote upon a proposition involving the raising of a tax.

By the Public Officers' Law, Chap. 681 of the Laws of 1892, Section 3, it is provided that "No person shall be capable of holding a civil office who shall not, at the time he shall be chosen thereto, be of full age, a citizen of the United States, and resident of the State, and, if it be a local office, a resident of the political subdivision or munic.i.p.al corporation of the State for which he shall be chosen, or within which the electors electing him reside, or within which his official functions are required to be exercised."

In the case of Findlay against Thorn, in the City Court of New York, where the question arose as to the right of a woman to exercise the office of notary public, Chief Justice McAdam refused to pa.s.s upon the question, holding that the right could be decided only in a direct proceeding brought for the purpose by the Attorney-General, in which the notary might defend her t.i.tle.

And the court adds:

"Whether a female is capable of holding a public office has never been decided by the courts of this State and it is a question about which legal minds may well differ. The Const.i.tution regulates the right of suffrage and limits it to 'male' citizens.

Disabilities are not favored and are seldom extended by implication, from which it may be argued that if it required the insertion of the term 'male' to exclude female citizens of lawful age from the right of suffrage, a similar limitation would be required to disqualify them from holding office. Citizens.h.i.+p is a condition or status and has no relation to age or s.e.x. It may be contended that it was left to the good sense of the Executive and to the electors to determine whether or not they would elect females to office and that the power being lodged in safe hands was beyond danger of abuse.

"If on the other hand it be seriously contended that the Const.i.tution by necessary implication, disqualifies females from holding office, it must follow as a necessary consequence that the Act of the Legislature permitting females to serve as school officers (Chap. 9, Laws of 1880), and all other legislative enactments of like import, removing such disqualifications, are unconst.i.tutional and void. In this same connection it may be argued that if the use of the personal p.r.o.noun 'he' in the Const.i.tution does not exclude females from public office, its use in the statute can have no greater effect. The statute, like the Const.i.tution, in prescribing qualifications for office omits the word 'male,' leaving the question whether female citizens of lawful age are included or excluded, one of construction.

"I make these observations for the purpose of showing that the question whether females are eligible to public office in this State, is one not entirely free from doubt and should not therefore be decided where it arises, as it does here, incidentally and collaterally. When the law officers of the State see fit to test the question in direct proceedings for the purpose, it will be time enough to attempt to settle the contention. In such a proceeding, the case of Robinson (131 Ma.s.s.

376, and that reported in 107 Ma.s.s. 604), where it was held that a woman could not be admitted to practice as an attorney and counselor at law in Ma.s.sachusetts, and those decided in other States that they can hold office, may be examined and considered."

See also Am. and Eng. Ency. of Law, Vol. 19, p. 403-4. I might add that in this State there are many women who hold the office of notary public.

WAs.h.i.+NGTON.

The following account of the unconst.i.tutional disfranchising of the women of Was.h.i.+ngton Territory in 1888 was carefully prepared by the editors of the _Woman's Journal_ (Boston). When the editors of the present volume decided to incorporate it as a part of the History of Woman Suffrage it was submitted to Judge Orange J. Jacobs of Seattle for legal inspection. He returned it with the statement that it was correct in every particular. It const.i.tutes one of the many judicial outrages which have been committed in the United States in the determination to prevent the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of women:

Women voted in Was.h.i.+ngton Territory for the first time in 1884, and were disfranchised by its Supreme Court in 1887.

Equal suffrage was granted by the Legislature in October, 1883.

The women at once began to distinguish themselves there, as in Wyoming and elsewhere, by voting for the best man, irrespective of party. The old files of the Was.h.i.+ngton newspapers bear ample evidence to this fact. The first chance they had to vote was at the munic.i.p.al elections of July, 1884. The Seattle _Mirror_ said:

"The city election of last Monday was for more reasons than one the most important ever held in Seattle. The presence of women at the voting-places had the effect of preventing the disgraceful proceedings usually seen. It was the first election in the city where the women could vote, and the first where the gambling and liquor fraternity, which had so long controlled the munic.i.p.al government to an enormous extent, suffered defeat."

The _Post-Intelligencer_ said:

"After the experience of the late election it will not do for any one here to say the women do not want to vote. They displayed as much interest as the men, and, if anything, more.... The result insures Seattle a first-cla.s.s munic.i.p.al administration. It is a warning to that undesirable cla.s.s of the community who subsist upon the weaknesses and vices of society that disregard of law and the decencies of civilization will not be tolerated."

Quotations might be multiplied from the papers of other towns, testifying to the independent voting of the women, the large size of their vote, the courtesy with which they were treated, and the greater quiet and order produced by their presence at the polls.

Next came the general election of November, 1884. Again the newspapers were practically unanimous as to the result. The Olympia _Transcript_, which was opposed to equal suffrage, said: "The result shows that all parties must put up good men if they expect to elect them. They can not do as they have in the past--nominate any candidates, and elect them by the force of the party lash."

The _Democratic State Journal_ said: "No one could fail to see that hereafter more attention must be given at the primaries to select the purest of material, by both parties, if they would gain the female vote."

Charles J. Woodbury visited Was.h.i.+ngton about this time. In a letter to the N. Y. _Evening Post_, he said: "Whatever may be the vicissitudes of woman suffrage in Was.h.i.+ngton Territory in the future, it should now be put on record that at the election, Nov.

4, 1884, nine-tenths of its adult female population availed themselves of the right to vote with a hearty enthusiasm."