Woman's work in municipalities

by Mary Ritter Beard

That November, 1910, three days after the receipt of the assessments, I put my furniture in storage and with my mother came to Hammond, feeling I must do something, but not knowing where to begin. No sooner had I stepped into the town, than I was aware that the streets were made of inferior material and poor workmanship; in fact one street was under construction, and so raw was the poor work that the Poles were threatening the lives of the workmen. This resulted in my interviewing all the inspectors and workmen on the different improvements and collecting evidence which I turned over to the state’s attorney, who would not give me any assistance.

I have stopped election after election, where the grafters tried to turn West Hammond into a city. I have stopped rotten paving and been kicked by policemen controlled by the clique and thrown into jail and persecuted by the friends of the grafters. I have had judgments against me by judges that were hired by them and almost every indignity waged against me to the naming of the worst dive here, the “Virginia” Buffet. In spite of the grafters, I have succeeded in electing to office this spring an entire active anti-graft ticket and at the coming meeting of the board will close down all of the notorious dives in West Hammond. I have saved for the Poles nearly $21,000 on reductions of over-charged assessments. I have succeeded in ousting an old clique who for years had been grafting on the school board, and being elected myself to the office of president. This means that I will introduce into the neglected school, manual training, domestic science, free night school, free kindergarten, and a playground.

I have established a settlement house in Hammond, Ind., right across the state line, where the boys and girls have night classes, and where mothers who work can take their babies for care. There are some 32,000 Poles in this region and the future looks to great achievement.

The logical outcome of the deep and intelligent interest in public affairs shown by women, the suffragists say, is the possession of the instrument which crystallizes public opinion into effective governmental action—the ballot. In as many as twelve states, nearly one-fourth of the United States, the women now have the suffrage. That they exercise their rights with as much discrimination and thoughtfulness as men, to say the least, is the testimony of more than one competent observer. Writing in The Survey, on March 21, 1914, Graham Taylor said of women in elections:

Illinois and Chicago give the country the most significant test of women’s voting....

As registration is required only in larger places, the figures for the state cannot be given at this writing, but in Chicago 217,614 women registered at their first opportunity. Added to the 455,283 men on the polling lists, these new voters increased the electorate to 672,897 voters, the largest number registered in any city in the United States.

At the primaries the women’s votes came within 1 per cent. of equaling the men’s. At the election the women polled, at the lowest count of the police returns, before the official revision, 158,686 or 73 per cent. of their registered voters, while the men’s votes numbered 328,987 or 72 per cent. of their registrations This is conceded by all concerned to be a very favorable showing for the women at their first registration and election. It ought to dispel the conjecture that few women want to vote or will not vote, if given the right, whether they seek it or not.

Next as to the test of the way they will vote. In the increased number and classification of candidates for the city council and in the decision required upon no less than twelve measures of great public importance by the “little ballot” measuring no less than 40 by 12 inches of solidly printed matter, this election exacted of all Chicago voters as great discrimination as they had ever been required to make. It therefore severely tested the interest and intelligence of all new voters, especially women who had hitherto had so much less occasion than men to consider closely such subjects. How did they stand the test?

The aldermanic candidates numbered 154, each ward having from two to seven names to choose from, and designated as Democrats, Republicans, Progressives, Prohibitionists, Socialists, Independents and Non-partisans....

The votes of the women which were awaited with equal eagerness by partisan leaders and by the rank and file of those who had hitherto constituted the non-partisan balance of power, tended decidedly toward non-partisanship. The newspapers agreed with the Municipal Voters’ League in crediting the women with electing no less than seven of the better candidates and with wielding their power either to defeat or lessen the majority of many more undesirable candidates.