In 1878 the report of Utah's governor contained the following: "All voters must be over twenty-one years of age, and must have resided in the Territory six months, and in the precinct one month. If males, they must be native born or naturalized citizens of the United States, and tax- payers in the Territory. A female voter need not be a tax-payer, and if the wife, widow or daughter of a native or naturalized citizen, need not herself be native or naturalized!" In 1892 the Utah Commission made to the Secretary of the Interior a report which gave it as their opinion that the sanction of the Church had been withdrawn only temporarily in regard to polygamous practices, and would be restored after a political purpose had been served. That same year a party was formed calling itself the "Liberal Party," and it carried Salt Lake City in the first election in which National party lines were drawn. This was one plank of its platform: "Anxious as every Liberal is to see every difference adjusted, as anxious as they are to exercise the utmost privileges accorded to the most favored Americans, they remember what first caused clashing here was the presence and control of an unyielding Theocracy and an imperium in imperio, and they cannot fail to note that at the last conference of this theocratic organization the old assumptions were all renewed." They therefore deprecated immediate Statehood. The bill granting it passed Congress in 1894. The Republican, Democratic and Populist parties in Utah all favored Statehood, and at the election following the Constitutional Convention these parties all inserted planks favoring free coinage of silver 16 to 1, demanding the return by government of "real estate belonging to the Mormon Church," and favoring the retention of woman suffrage.
The women of Utah were greatly in evidence during the late presidential election. Several of them were candidates for office; but it is a significant fact that, even in Utah, and even on the Republico-Demo- Populist ticket, the women's vote ran far behind that for the men. "The Salt Lake Herald" for November 13, 1896, records the fact that "Woman suffrage gave Utah to Bryan," and in another place it says: "The women on both tickets polled a small number of votes." Martha Cannon, who was elected State Senator, obtained 8,167 votes. The men on the same ticket, elected to the same office, polled, respectively, 9,875, 9,355, 9,244, 9,036 votes. Mrs. Cannon was on the free silver ticket against her husband, who was nominated for the same office on the Republican ticket. Of the other candidates for the senatorships on that ticket, four were men and one a woman. The men's vote stood: 6,405, 6,197, 6,129, 5,961. The woman's was 4,692. The only woman put up for State Representative ran 2,000 votes behind her ticket. One man only, "the ex-dog-catcher" of the county, fell below her. The woman's vote was 4,879, the dog-catcher's 4,325.
I copy from the "Salt Lake Herald" a few sentences taken from an interview with Mrs. Cannon, State Senator elect. When asked if she was a strong believer in woman suffrage, she answered: "Of course I am. It will help women, and it will purify politics. Women are better than men. Slaves are always better than their masters." "Do you refer to polygamy?" was asked. "Indeed I do not," she answered. "I believe in polygamy. My father and mother were Mormons, and I am a Mormon…. A plural wife isn't half as much of a slave as a single wife. If her husband has four wives, she has three weeks of freedom every single month…. Of course it is all at an end now, but I think the women of Utah think, with me, that we were better off in polygamy…. Sixty per cent. of the voters of this State are women. We control the State…. What am I going to do with my children while I am making the laws for the State? The same thing I have done with them when I have been practicing medicine. They have been left to themselves a good deal…. Some day there will be a law compelling people to have no more than a certain amount of children, and the mothers of the land can live as they ought to live." This is the character and opinion presented by the highest State official that woman suffrage has as yet given to the United States. Comment upon it seems unnecessary, so far as it would be needed to express the disgust of the majority of American women at such sentiments and such a situation. But has any Suffrage speaker or meeting denounced them, or deprecated the result of the election? I have heard of none. The National Suffrage Convention, which was held in Iowa, in January, 1897, had the newly-elected Populist women as guests of honor, and held a jubilation over the two new Suffrage States—Utah and Idaho. Idaho has elected a Populist woman or two. The vote in that State in favor of the gold standard and that against woman suffrage tally within forty-two votes.
The instinctive alliance of the Woman Suffrage movement with the uncertain and dangerous elements in our political life is well exemplified by the campaign in California in connection with the late presidential election. Mrs. Barclay Hazard, who was almost the sole woman to express publicly the opposition which the majority of women felt, to the Suffrage idea, has given me the following clear account of the conditions and result. She says: "If the advocates of Woman Suffrage give a really frank and truthful answer to the question, 'What caused the defeat of the movement in the late campaign in California?' they must reply, 'Public sentiment was against it.' In all fairness, there is no other reason. Let us consider the conditions under which the campaign was carried on. In the first place, the Suffragists were most fortunate in choosing a time when the whole country, as well as the State of California, was torn by a question of such vital importance to continued life and well-being that all other matters were in danger of going by default.
"Second: They were extremely well organized and had command of a campaign fund of no mean magnitude, which enabled them to keep in the field such able and experienced agitators as Miss Susan B. Anthony and the Rev. Anna Shaw, to say nothing of numerous lesser lights.
"Third: There was absolutely no organized opposition to the movement. The women who disapproved were as a rule entirely unaccustomed to public speaking and were averse to coming forward in any way. They remonstrated in private but would not express their views openly.
"Fourth: Last but by no means least, our Suffrage friends may be said to have had the press of the State with them. The 'Los Angeles Times' (the most influential paper in the southern part of the State) cannot be said to have aided the movement, neither did it actively antagonize it beyond admitting to its columns occasionally letters from the 'Antis.' Yet for this small opposition I heard an ardent advocate propose that the Suffragists should boycott the paper!
"Now, was ever a cause fought for under conditions more conducive to success? 'Every thing,' to use a current slang phrase, 'seemed to be going their way.' They fully expected to win, and those of us most opposed to their ideas in private sadly conceded their probable victory. The result when it came was all the more a surprise and blow to the Suffragists and a welcome reassurance to the friends of stability and conservatism. The figures show us that while the stronghold of Populism, the South, went for the measure, Alameda County turned the scale. One must know California to realize what that means. Alameda County contains the city of Oakland, which is admittedly the most respectable and moral city in California; it also contains the town of Berkeley, which is the home of the University of California with its large faculty of clever men, most of them from the East. Yes, it was here in the stronghold of morals and intellect that the Woman Suffrage movement in California met its fate."
A question constantly and properly asked is: "How does woman suffrage work where it is exercised?" So far as I can obtain information, where it has worked at all, it has been detrimental to women and to the State.
Of Wyoming there is much testimony to the fact that during the Territorial period (1868-'89) women did little voting, and played no appreciable part in political life. Populism and Free Coinage had begun to play a prominent part in the whole section when Wyoming was admitted to Statehood in 1890. At the election that followed its admission there was a fusion that resulted in the election of a Populist Governor, and such was the riotous state of feeling that the Governor was obliged to enter the State House through a broken window. A year later this same Governor, in his annual message, proclaimed woman suffrage to be a notable success. As a proof, he pointed to the fact that there were no criminals in the State, and that the jails were empty. A little research into official documents showed that there might be other reasons, because the criminals and those guilty of small offences were at that time lodged in other States, and a year later, when the authorities took possession of Laramie Prison, given by the Government, and brought home their evil-doers, they outnumbered, in proportion to population, those of New Mexico, which certainly should be a fair place for comparison.