Theorists have always insisted that equal suffrage would greatly improve the material conditions which surround the polls on election day. One of the prominent political leaders in Idaho, who has been intimately in touch with conditions for a quarter of a century, said that of course there had been great improvement in the last fifteen years. "Things would have improved any way," he said, "but I am sure that the women have had a large influence. No woman has ever been insulted at the polls in Idaho and she runs no more danger of annoyance than she would in buying her ticket at a railway window. Men are not always sober in either place; but if a man made a remark to a woman that was not polite, or used annoying language in her presence, he would be mobbed by the men even in the roughest mining camp in the State." Doubtless women have helped to break the connection between the saloon and the polling-place, but no one claims that women have made voting into a drawing-room ceremony. On the contrary, women are very persistent workers at the polls, seeking to direct doubtful voters.
Advocates of equal suffrage have pretty generally held the belief that if women were given the ballot their superior moral standards would lead to a marked change in the handling of such problems as the liquor traffic and the control of red light districts. Of woman's superior moral standards there can be no doubt; of the actual effect of her vote upon these questions there is a great deal of doubt. While I was in Idaho, the question of local option came up before the voters of Salt Lake City, in the neighboring equal suffrage State of Utah, and the "wets" won by a vote of 14,775 to 9,162. Thousands of women must have voted for license to bring about this result. In April, 1911, the question of license or no license was voted on in Boisé. In this case again the "wets" won by a considerable majority.
Take another case. For several years in Boisé, until 1909, the red light district was segregated in two alleys in the heart of the city. In the municipal election of that year this issue came fairly before the voters, and the democratic nominee for mayor, who was pledged to break up the system, was elected by a considerable majority, though the city is strongly republican. This result was undoubtedly due to the women's vote. After two years, the issue came up again; and the republican nominee, who was opposed to the scattering policy though not pledged to segregation, was elected; and this result must again have been due to the woman's vote. Prominent women of the city told me that during the two years when the scattering policy prevailed, the evil was very conspicuous, and women going about alone felt far less comfortable than under the older system.
There are two ways to explain the fact that, after fifteen years of political experience, the women of Boisé voted in large numbers for license and for a policy in handling the red light district which they knew would mean a return to police control. In the first place, it may be said that fifteen years of steady contact with political life had blunted the sensibilities of women and dulled their moral feeling. On the other hand, it may be held that practical experience, under the steady pressure of responsibility, had made them realize the difficulties involved in the handling of these great social problems and had made them feel that a law which could command the support of public opinion, even though it regulated these difficulties, was better than a law which they might consider ideal, but which was incapable of execution.
In Idaho, as in Colorado, the payment of women political workers seems to have become a rather wide-spread abuse. Under the conditions of the State, with many new settlers constantly arriving, it has long been thought necessary to employ paid workers to register voters, get them out on election-day and influence those who are uncertain. After 1896, women were often hired to do this work, and were paid from three to five dollars a day. With their weak sense of party affiliation, it is claimed that they will work for the party that pays best. A candidate with plenty of money may hire so many workers that it becomes a system of wholesale bribery. It is universally conceded that this is an abuse, and that many women look upon election service as a source of pin money to a degree that is undesirable. Meantime, practical politicians assured me that it was a system the women found in operation when they came in; that far more men than women were paid; and that the abuse could be corrected by proper legislation.
To summarize the matter, we may say that equal suffrage in Idaho has simply accentuated the movement toward setting women free to live their individual lives which general education and participation in industrial life has already carried so far all over the country. Equal suffrage is accepted there, as the higher education of women is accepted in Massachusetts, and the results in the two cases have been much the same.
Surely these reports carry the matter beyond the experimental stage. Conditions in Colorado and Idaho are not identical with those in the East, but they are similar enough to make the experience of these States amount to a demonstration. Meantime the new obligation resting on women is profound. They must learn to "sweat their tempers and learn to know their man." They must become students of public affairs and of institutional life. Old issues are past; and equal suffrage will soon prevail everywhere. Women, like men, have more "rights" in our modern democracies than they can use. Woman's Rights are largely realized; from now on we must front Woman's Duties.