The History of Woman Suffrage Volume VI Part 63

The Franchise Department of the W. C. T. U. had done educational work for years under the leaders.h.i.+p of Mrs. Margaret B. Platt, State president, and Mrs. Margaret C. Munns, State secretary, affectionately referred to as "the Margarets." Its speakers always made convincing pleas for suffrage and Mrs. Munns's drills in parliamentary usage were valuable in training the women for the campaign of 1910. Tribute must be paid to the fine, self-sacrificing work of this organization. In a private conference called by Mrs. DeVoe early in the campaign, the W.

C. T. U. represented by these two, an agreement was reached that, in order not to antagonize the "whisky" vote, the temperance women would submerge their hard-earned honors and let the work of their unions go unheralded. They kept the faith.

A suffrage play, A Mock Legislative Session, written by Mrs. S. L. W.

Clark of Seattle, was given in the State House and repeated in other cities. Several hundred dollars' worth of suffrage literature was furnished to local unions. They placarded the bill boards throughout the State, cooperating with Dr. Fannie Leake c.u.mmings, who managed this enterprise, a.s.sisted by the Seattle Suffrage Club, by Mrs.

George A. Smith of the Alki Point Club and others who helped finance it to a cost of $535. The placard read: "Give the Women a Square Deal.

Vote for the Amendment to Article VI," and proved to be an effective feature.

Mrs. Eliza Ferry Leary, among the highest taxpayers in the State, was chosen by the National a.s.sociation Opposed to Woman Suffrage as their representative, but, having satisfied her sense of duty by accepting the office, she did nothing and thus endeared herself to the active campaigners for the vote. There were no other "anti" members in the State. The only meeting held was called by a brief newspaper notice at the residence of Mrs. Leary one afternoon on the occasion of a visit by a representative, Mrs. Frances E. Bailey of Oregon, at which six persons were present--the hostess, the guest of honor, three active members of the suffrage a.s.sociation and a casual guest. No business was transacted. With the "antis" should be cla.s.sed the only minister who opposed suffrage, the Rev. Mark A. Mathews of the First Presbyterian Church, the largest in Seattle. He was born in Georgia but came to Seattle from Tennessee. His violent denunciations lent spice to the campaign by calling out cartoons and articles combating his point of view. When suffrage was obtained he harangued the women on their duty to use the vote, not forgetting to instruct them how to use it.

Election day was reported to the _Woman's Journal_ of Boston by Miss Parker as follows: "It was a great victory. The women at the polls were wonderfully effective. Many young women, middle-aged women and white-haired grandmothers stood for hours handing out the little reminders. It rained--the usual gentle but very insistent kind of rain--and the men were so solicitous! They kept trying to drag us off to get our feet warm or bringing us chairs or offering to hand out our ballots while we took a rest, but the women would not leave their places until relieved by other women, even for lunch, for fear of losing a vote. The whole thing appealed to the men irresistibly. We are receiving praise from all quarters for the kind of campaign we made--no personalities, no boasting of what we would do, no promises, no meddling with other issues--just 'Votes for Women' straight through, because it is just and reasonable and everywhere when tried has been found expedient."

The amendment was adopted November 8, 1910, by the splendid majority of 22,623, nearly 2 to 1. The vote stood 52,299 ayes to 29,676 noes out of a total vote of 138,243 cast for congressmen. Every one of the 39 counties and every city was carried. The large cities won in the following order: Seattle and King County 12,052 to 6,695; Tacoma and Pierce County, 5,552 to 3,442; Spokane and Spokane County, 5,639 to 4,551. Then came Bellingham and Whatcom County, 3,520 to 1,334; Everett and Snohomish County, 3,209 to 1,294; Bremerton and Kitsap County, including the U. S. Navy Yard, 1,094 to 372. Kitsap was the banner county giving the highest ratio for the amendment. This was largely due to the remarkable house to house canva.s.s made by Mrs.

Elizabeth A. Baker of Manette.

The cost of the twenty months' campaign is estimated to be $17,000, which includes the amounts spent by organizations and individuals. The money was raised in various ways and contributions ran from 25 cents up, few exceeding $100. Over $500 were subscribed by the labor unions and about $500 collected at the Granges and Farmers' Unions' suffrage meetings. Dr. Sarah A. Kendall of Seattle collected the largest amount of any one person. About $3,000 were contributed from outside the State, chiefly from New York, Ma.s.sachusetts and California. The first and largest gift which heartened the workers was $500 from Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt.[201]

After the suffrage amendment was carried there was organized on Jan.

14, 1911, the National Council of Women Voters at the home of Mr. and Mrs. John Q. Mason in Tacoma. Governor James H. Brady of Idaho issued a call to the Governors of the four other equal suffrage States--Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and Was.h.i.+ngton--asking them to send delegates to this first convention. He presided at the opening session and spoke at the evening meeting which filled the largest theater.

Mrs. DeVoe was elected president and was re-elected at each succeeding convention. It was non-partisan and non-sectarian and its objects were three-fold: 1. To educate women voters in the exercise of their citizens.h.i.+p; 2. To secure legislation in equal suffrage States in the interest of men and women, of children and the home; 3. To aid in the further extension of woman suffrage. As new States gained suffrage they joined the Council.

Before Mrs. DeVoe went to the National Suffrage Convention at St.

Louis in March, 1919, she was authorized by the Council to take whatever steps were necessary to merge it in the National League of Women Voters which was to be organized there. Mrs. Catt requested her to complete the arrangements when she returned to Was.h.i.+ngton and act as chairman until this was accomplished. On Jan. 6, 1920, the Council became the State League of Women Voters. Mrs. Nelle Mitch.e.l.l Fick was elected temporary and later Mrs. W. S. Griswold permanent chairman.

On the afternoon of August 21, old and new suffrage workers joined in a celebration at Seattle of the final ratification by the Legislature of Tennessee, which was attended by over two hundred women.

Election returns furnish conclusive proof that the women of Was.h.i.+ngton use the ballot. After 1910 the total registration of the State nearly doubled, although men outnumber women, and the women apparently vote in the same proportion as men. A tremendous increase of interest among them in civic, economic and political affairs followed the adoption of suffrage and the results were evidenced by a much larger number of laws favorably affecting the status of women and the home pa.s.sed in the ten year period following 1910 than during the previous ten year period. Uniform hostility to liquor, prost.i.tution and vice has been shown; also to working conditions adversely affecting the health and morals of women and children.

The vote of the women was the deciding factor in the Seattle recall election of February 8, 1911, when Mayor Hiram Gill was removed because of vice conditions permitted to flourish under his administration. It was acknowledged that, due to a strong combination of the vice and public utility interests of the city, he would have been retained but for their opposition. His re-election later by a small majority is explained by the fact that he begged the citizens to give him a chance to remove the stigma from his name for the sake of his wife and family, with whom his relations were blameless.

The State Legislative Federation, representing 140 various kinds of women's clubs and organizations, having a total members.h.i.+p of over 50,000 women, has maintained headquarters at Olympia during the sessions of the Legislature in recent years, to the advantage of legislation. The W. C. T. U. also is an active influence. Miss Lucy R.

Case, as executive secretary of the Joint Legislative Committee of the State Federation of Labor, Grange, Farmers' Union and Direct Legislation League, took an important part at the elections of 1914 and 1916 in defeating the reactionary measures affecting popular government and labor.

Representative Frances C. Axtell of Bellingham introduced and engineered the minimum wage law and several moral bills in cooperation with the W. C. T. U. Representative Frances M. Haskell of Tacoma led in securing the law for equal pay for men and women teachers. Reah M.

Whitehead, Justice of the Peace of King county, prepared and promoted the law relating to unmarried mothers. The Seattle Branch of the Council of Women Voters established a "quiz congress," which requested candidates to attend its meetings and state their position on campaign issues and answer questions and many candidates importuned it for a chance to be heard.

RATIFICATION. The Federal Suffrage Amendment was ratified on March 22, 1920, at an extraordinary session called princ.i.p.ally for that purpose.

Governor Louis F. Hart had been reluctant to call a special session on the ground that, due to the unsettled condition of the country at that time, it would afford opportunity for the introduction of a flood of radical legislation which would keep the Legislature in prolonged session at great expense to the State. He finally yielded to the persuasion of a large number of the leading women of the State and to political pressure from his party in high places and called the session, which lasted but three days and dealt only with the subjects mentioned in the call.

The occasion was most impressive. The Capitol was thronged with women who had traveled from every corner of the State to partic.i.p.ate in the occasion. Every available seat in the balconies of both Houses was filled and the aisles and corridors were crowded. The hope and expectation that at any moment the wires might flash the news that Delaware had ratified and Was.h.i.+ngton would thus be the thirty-sixth and final State to enfranchise the women of the whole nation, lent an added thrill to the proceedings. At noon both Houses met in joint session to listen to the Governor's message. Dealing with the ratification he reminded the members that in 1910 the electors had adopted woman suffrage by an overwhelming vote and said, "The State has done well under the management of both men and women." A marked feature of their proceedings was the gracious courtesy accorded to the old suffrage leaders and workers, who were present in large numbers.

In the House the honor of introducing the resolution was accorded to Mrs. Haskell, Representative from Pierce county, who made a strong speech favoring its adoption. Not one vote was cast against it. By special resolution Mrs. Emma Smith DeVoe, referred to as "the mother of suffrage" in the State, was invited to a seat on the right of Speaker Adams, with Governor Hart on the left. A special committee was appointed to escort her and she took her seat amid loud cheers. She was asked to address the House and said in part:

I am proud of the Legislature of Was.h.i.+ngton because of this patriotic act and I thank you in the name of our forefathers, who first proclaimed that "taxation without representation is tyranny" and that government without consent is unjust.... I thank you in the name of the early suffrage workers who have pa.s.sed on to their beautiful reward. I thank you in the name of the women of the United States of today who will, I trust, use their new political freedom wisely and well. I thank you in the name of the children who will come after us; they will have a better, broader and n.o.bler heritage than was ours. And I personally thank you from the depths of my heart. G.o.d bless you every one!

Twelve minutes after the resolution reached the Senate it had been pa.s.sed by another unanimous vote. During the proceedings Mrs. Homer M.

Hill sat beside President Carlyon and was invited to address the members. Described as "a tiny figure whose white hair was scarcely on a level with the top of the Speaker's desk," she expressed the emotions of the older suffragists as they witnessed the adoption of the resolution. She thanked them in the name also of the W. C. T. U., and thanked the leaders in the cause of labor and of many other organizations, as well as the leaders of both parties. "Was.h.i.+ngton has led the victorious crusade for the Pacific Coast States," she said.

"May we always appreciate what it means to live in a State whose men themselves gave this right to women!"

[LAWS. A complete digest of the laws relating especially to the interests of women and children and to moral questions enacted during the first decade of the present century was prepared for this chapter by Judge Reah M. Whitehead of Seattle. This was supplemented by an abstract of fifty-eight statutes of a similar nature enacted during the last decade, prepared by attorneys Adella M. Parker of Seattle and Bernice A. Sapp of Olympia. They largely cover the field of modern liberal legislation but can not be given because of the decision to omit the laws in all the State chapters for lack of s.p.a.ce. The results on questions related to prohibition submitted to the electors, with women voting, are significant: Statute for State-wide prohibition submitted in 1914: ayes, 189,840; noes, 171,208; statute submitted in 1916 permitting hotels to sell liquor: ayes, 48,354; noes, 262,390; statute authorizing manufacture, sale and export of 4 per cent. beer: ayes, 98,843; noes, 245,399.]

FOOTNOTES:

[196] The History is indebted for this chapter to Dr. Cora Smith King, a.s.sisted by Mrs. Emma Smith DeVoe, Dr. Sarah A. Kendall, Mrs. Homer M.

Hill, and others. Valuable a.s.sistance in editing the ma.n.u.script was rendered by Judson King, writer and lecturer, Secretary of the National Popular Government League, Was.h.i.+ngton, D. C.

[197] Following is a complete list of the officers of the State a.s.sociation who served during the campaign of 1910: President, Mrs.

Emma Smith DeVoe, Melmont; vice-presidents: Mrs. Bessie I. Savage, Seattle; Mrs. Jennie Jewett, White Salmon; Mrs. John Q. Mason, Tacoma; Mrs. Alice M. Grover, Spokane; Mrs. Anna E. Goodwin, Columbia (now Mrs. Yungbluth); treasurer, Dr. Cora Smith Eaton, Seattle (now Dr.

King); corresponding secretary, Mrs. Ellen S. Leckenby, Seattle; headquarters secretary, Miss Mabel Fontron, Seattle (now Mrs. Paul Rewman); auditors, Miss Bernice A. Sapp, Olympia, Dr. Anna W. Scott, West Seattle, Dr. N. Jolidon Croake, Tacoma, Mrs. H. J. McGregor, Tacoma; trustees, Dr. Sarah A. Kendall, Seattle, Mrs. Georgia B.

Smith, Anacortes, Mrs. B. B. Lord, Olympia; chairmen of standing committees: Church Work, Mrs. C. M. Miller, Seattle; Letter Writers, Mrs. Lucie F. Isaacs, Walla Walla; Literature, Mrs. E. M. Wardall, West Seattle; Labor Unions, Dr. Luema G. Johnson, Tacoma; Publication, Miss Linda Jennings, LaConner; Finance, Mrs. H. D. Wright, Seattle; Headquarters, Miss Mary G. O'Meara, Seattle (now Mrs. Otway Pardee); Advisory, Mrs. Amos Brown, West Seattle; Library, Mrs. Dora W.

Cryderman, Bellingham; Precincts, Mrs. Silvia A. Hunsicker, Seattle; Pet.i.tions, Mrs. Roy Welch, Kelso; Educational, Mrs. Margaret Heyes Hall, Vancouver; Member of National Executive Committee, Miss Adella M. Parker, Seattle; Historian, Miss Ida Agnes Baker, Bellingham.

[198] Other officers of the Franchise Society were: a.s.sistants, Mrs.

Edward P. Fick and Mrs. D. L. Carmichael; corresponding secretary, Mrs. F. S. Bash; recording secretary, Mrs. W. T. Perkins; treasurer, Mrs. E. M. Rininger; financial secretary, Mrs. Phebe A. Ryan. Others who worked without pay were: Miss Martha Gruening of New York and Miss Jeannette Rankin of Montana. Mrs. George A. Smith, president of the Alki Point Suffrage Club of Seattle, worked independently but cooperated with the society in many ways. The society employed Mrs.

Rose Aschermann, Mrs. Ethel Stalford, Charles E. Cline, Vaughn Ellis and John Gray of Was.h.i.+ngton.

[199] During the year following the winning of the franchise Mrs.

Hanna published her paper under the name of _The New Citizen_. Miss Parker published twelve numbers of a monthly paper called The _Western Woman Voter_, from the files of which much valuable data has been gleaned for this chapter.

[200] The member was Dr. Cora Smith King.--Ed.

[201] Among eastern contributors were Henry B. and Alice Stone Blackwell, Ma.s.s., $250; Mr. and Mrs. J. H. Lesser, California, $100; Mrs. H. E. Flansburg, New York, $100; Miss Janet Richards, Was.h.i.+ngton, D. C., $100; the Rev. Olympia Brown, Wisconsin, $25. The National American Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation contributed direct to Mrs. DeVoe for traveling expenses to June, 1909, inclusive, $900. At this time, seventeen months before the amendment was submitted, through differences arising between the national and State organizations, all national support was withdrawn. Among those contributing from the East to Mrs. Hill's society through Miss Margaret W. Bayne of Kirkland, who went there to raise money, her own trip being financed by Mrs. E. M.

Rininger of Seattle, were: Mrs. Henry Villard, New York, $200; Mrs.

Susan Look Avery, Kentucky, $250; Mrs. Elizabeth Smith Miller and Miss Anne Fitzhugh Miller, New York, $300; Mrs. Kemeys, New York, $100; Mrs. Alfred Lewis, New York, $50; Mrs. Raymond Robins, Illinois, $50; Misses Isabel and Emily Howland, New York, $20; Mrs. Sarah L. Willis, New York, $20; Mrs. Isabella B. Hooker, Conn., $25; Equal Suffrage a.s.sociation, Ma.s.s., $100; Mrs. H. S. Lus...o...b.. Ma.s.s., $100; "A Friend,"

$200.

The net contribution of the National to the State a.s.sociation during the campaign, deducting the expense of entertaining the 1909 national convention, was about $30.

CHAPTER XLVII.

WEST VIRGINIA.[202]

In 1895 when the West Virginia Equal Suffrage a.s.sociation was organized through the effort of the National American a.s.sociation, with Mrs. Jessie G. Manley president, nine clubs were formed in the northern part of the State but only those in Fairmont and Wheeling remained in existence after 1900. The first president of the Fairmont Club was the mother of Mrs. Manley, Mrs. Margaret J. Grove, who with her sisters, Mrs. Corilla E. Shearer and Miss Ellen D. Harn, all still living, aged 89, 90 and 92, led in the early suffrage work in the State, and Mrs. Mary Reed of Fairmont also was a pioneer. Little public work was done until an active suffrage movement was inaugurated in Virginia and in 1912 Miss Mary Johnston came to Charleston and organized a club. One was formed in Morgantown and these four const.i.tuted the State a.s.sociation until the amendment campaign of 1916.

The following have served as State presidents: Mrs. Beulah Boyd Ritchie, 1900-1903; Mrs. M. Anna Hall, 1904; Mrs. Anne M. Southern, 1905; Dr. Harriet B. Jones, 1906; Mrs. May Hornbrook, 1907-1910; Mrs.

Allie Haymond, 1911-1912; Miss Margaret McKinney, 1913; Mrs. J. Gale Ebert, 1914-1915; Mrs. Lenna Lowe Yost, 1916; Mrs. John L. Ruhl, 1917-1920.[203] Annual meetings were held as follows: 1900, December 1, Fairmont; 1904, August 11, Moundsville; 1905, October 27, Fairmont; 1906, October 26, Wheeling; 1907, November 8, Wheeling; 1908, October 29, Fairmont; 1909, October 30, Wheeling; 1911, October 27, Fairmont; 1913, October 24, Wheeling. During these years practically all that was done was to have speakers of note from time to time and a resolution for woman suffrage introduced in the Legislature whenever possible.

In 1904 a new city charter was prepared for Wheeling and an effort was made to have it provide for a munic.i.p.al vote for women. Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, national president, gave a week to speaking in the city and Miss Kate Gordon, national corresponding secretary, spent three weeks there, addressing many organizations. The question was submitted to the voters with the charter but on a separate ballot. Both were lost, the suffrage amendment by 1,600. More votes were cast on it than on the charter itself.

In 1910 an amendment to the State const.i.tution permitting women to be appointed notaries public, clerks of county courts, probation officers and members of boards of State inst.i.tutions went to the voters. The State Bar a.s.sociation also had an amendment and kindly printed the literature for the former and sent it out with theirs. It received the larger number of votes--44,168 ayes, 45,044 noes--and was lost by only 876.