What eight million women want

by Rheta Childe Dorr

But lately the women of Colorado have begun to wake up to the fact that not only special legislation, but all legislation, is of direct interest to them. It has lately dawned upon them that the matter of street railway franchise affects the home as directly as a proposition to erect a high school. Also it has dawned on them that without organization, and more organization, the woman vote was more or less powerless. So, about a year ago they formed in Denver an association of women which they called the Public Service League. Nothing quite like it ever existed before. It is a political but non-partisan association of women, pledged to work for the civic betterment of Denver, pledged to fight the corrupt politicians, determined that the city government shall be well administered even if the women have to take over the offices themselves. The League is, in effect, a secret society of women. It has an inflexible rule that its proceedings are to be kept inviolable. There is a perfect understanding that any woman who divulges one syllable of what occurs at a meeting of the League will be instantly dropped from membership. No woman has yet been dropped.

It may well be understood that this secret society of women, this non-partisan league of voters, is a thing to strike terror into the heart of a ward boss. As a matter of fact, the corrupt politicians and the equally corrupt heads of corporations who had long held Denver in bondage regard the Public Service League in mingled dread and detestation. Equally as a matter of fact politicians of a better class are anxious to enlist the good will of the League. Last summer a Denver election involved a question of granting a twenty years' franchise to a street railway company. Opposed to the granting of the franchise was a newly formed citizens' party. Opposed also was the Women's Public Service League. In gratitude for the co-operation of the League the Citizens' Party offered a place on the electoral ticket to any woman chosen by the League.

It was the first time in the history of Colorado that a municipal office had been offered to a woman, and the League promptly took advantage of it. They named as a candidate for Election Commissioner Miss Ellis Meredith, one of the best known, best loved women in the State. As journalist and author and club woman Miss Meredith is known far beyond her own State, and her nomination created intense interest not only among the women of her own city and State, but among club women everywhere.

On the evening of May 3, 1910, there was a meeting held in the Broadway Theater, Denver, the like of which no American city ever before witnessed. It was a women's political mass meeting to endorse the candidacy of a woman municipal official. The meeting was entirely in the hands of women. Presiding over the immense throng was Mrs. Sarah Platt Decker, formerly president, and still leader of the General Federation of Women's Clubs. Beside her sat Mrs. Helen Grenfell, for thirteen years county and State superintendent of schools, Mrs. Helen Ring Robinson, Mrs. Martha A.B. Conine, and Miss Gail Laughlin, all women of note in their community. The enthusiasm aroused by that meeting did not subside, and on the day of the election Miss Meredith ran so far ahead of her ticket that it seemed as if every woman in Denver, as well as most of the men, had voted for her. She took her place in the Board of Election Commissioners, and was promptly elected Chairman of the Board.

There is nothing especially attractive about the office of Election Commissioner. In accepting the nomination Miss Meredith said frankly that she was influenced mainly by two things: first a desire to test the loyalty of the women voters, and second, because, while women had been held accountable for elections which have disgraced the city of Denver, they have never before been given a chance to manage the elections.

Nothing is more certain that women, when they become enfranchised, will never, in any large numbers, appear as office seekers. It is probable that office will be thrust upon the ablest of them. Mrs. Sarah Platt Decker has been spoken of as a possible future Mayor of Denver, and it is certain that she could be elected to Congress if she would allow herself to be placed in nomination.

A few women have been elected to the legislatures in the suffrage States, and they have held high office in educational departments. In suffrage and nonsuffrage States they have been elected to many county offices. Miss Gertrude Jordan is Treasurer of Cherry County, Nebraska. In Idaho, Texas, Louisiana, and several other States women have filled the same position. The State of Kansas is a true believer in women office-holders, even though it refuses its women complete suffrage. Women can vote in Kansas only at municipal elections, but in forty counties men have elected women school superintendents. They are clerks of four counties, treasurers of three, and commissioners of one. In one county of Kansas a woman is probate judge. The good and faithful work done by these women ought to go a long way towards educating men of their community to the idea of political association with women.

The attitude of men towards suffrage has undergone an enormous change within the past two years. A large number of the thinking men of the country have openly enlisted in the Suffrage ranks. It is said that almost every member of the faculty of Columbia University signed the Suffrage petition presented to the Congress of 1909. Well-known professors of many Western universities and colleges have spoken and written in favor of equal suffrage. In New York City a flourishing Voters' League for Equal Suffrage has been formed, with a membership running into the hundreds.