Let us consider for a moment what kind of “glimpses of interest and companionship” the Colorado women get by going into politics. Miss Sumner’s inquiries did not lead her to believe that woman’s morals were injured, or her affairs neglected as a consequence of the mere act of voting. Perhaps not; that large class of either very docile or shrewd women, who march to the polls with husband or father, vote as he directs, and quickly return with him, cannot be said to have suffered much direct harm in the process; nor indeed on the other hand to have got many “glimpses of wider interest.” And yet, what of the indirect results? Is it degrading or not to act a lie publicly and solemnly, to deliberately trifle with country and conscience, as one does by voting for people of whom he knows nothing, and for legislation which he does not thoroughly understand? Is it nothing to trifle with a weighty obligation? When a citizen goes to the polls and votes, does he, or does he not, in effect represent and declare, before God and his country, that he has investigated the matter, and that his ballot represents his solemn and true conviction? And if that declaration be false, if he has no solemn or true conviction on the subject, is he, or is he not, acting the part of a perjured rascal and traitor, and can his conscience pass through that ordeal unscathed? Here is food for thought for many a male voter and for nearly all the female voters.
Miss Sumner learned out there, some interesting particulars of the “broadening in the outlook” and the new “companionship” which Colorado women get from exercising the suffrage; and the experience must have astonished some of the decent ones among them till they got used to it. Her book fairly reeks with the tainted atmosphere of female corruption; the whole woman’s movement there was steeped in moral filth. Here are her own words (p. 258):
“Politics in Colorado are at least as corrupt as in other states, and the woman of ideals who goes into political life for reform soon finds, not merely that she is working in the mire, but that she is persona non grata with the habitual denizens of the mire and with those persons who profit by its existence.”
Among the first fruits of woman suffrage in Colorado seems to have been the development of a big batch of female criminals. In Arapahoe County in 1900 there were 5284 fraudulent registrations of voters of which 3512 were men and 1772 women. Seventeen hundred female criminals in one county! There must have been a considerable “broadening in the outlook” for women theretofore accustomed to decent homes; and a “closer companionship” with rogues, and understanding of their devices was no doubt arrived at. In fact Colorado has been said to be the most corrupt electorate in the United States. Of its effects there United States Judge Hailett, a resident of the state, said, “if it were to be done over again the people of Colorado would defeat woman suffrage by an overwhelming majority.” It stands because politicians are cowards and unscrupulous, and Colorado like other states is ruled by politicians. It has increased political corruption in the state. In 1905 about thirty men were sent to jail in Denver and fined, and in Pueblo there were 257 indictments, all for election frauds. It has not diminished political rowdyism. In an article in the Outlook in January 1906, Lawrence Lewis, who studied the subject for several years in Colorado, says that since woman suffrage went into effect, there has been a continuation of the former frauds, drunkenness, fights and arrests for crimes. Referring to the notorious election knaveries committed by both parties in November 1904, the second year of female voting, he says:
“In Denver neither in November 1904 nor for twenty years has there been an election that decent citizens of either party would unhesitatingly assert was anywhere near on the square.”
He further says, that in the cities such as Denver, Pueblo, etc., a great number of fallen women vote under the control of the bosses, often under compulsion.
“It is safe to say that under ordinary conditions and under ordinary police administration, ninety per cent of the fallen women in our cities are compelled to register and to vote at least once for the candidates favored by the police or sheriff officers. But in ordinary times these women are also compelled to repeat.... A former city detective or fine collector in Pueblo has been tried, convicted and sentenced to a term of years in the penitentiary for compelling an unfortunate woman to repeat her registration. He is under further indictments for compelling the same woman to forge fictitious names by the hundreds to district registration sheets, all of which names were to be voted on election day by other fallen women from whom the fellow collected fines.”
Other similar instances are given by the writer in this same article. And he adds that:
“It would indeed appear that the average character of the actual voting body has either remained unchanged or has been slightly lowered as regards actual political intelligence and discrimination.”
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