The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV

by Unknown

As the women were thus illegally restrained from voting for delegates, the opponents of their enfranchisement were enabled to elect a convention with a majority sufficient to prevent a woman suffrage clause in the constitution for Statehood.

Henry B. Blackwell, corresponding secretary of the American W. S. A., came from Massachusetts to assist in securing such a clause. After a long discussion as to whether he should be permitted to address the convention, both sides agreed that the delegates should be invited to hear him in Tacoma Hall. His address was highly praised even by newspapers and persons opposed to equal suffrage. Four days later, with Judge Orange J. Jacobs and Mrs. Elizabeth Lyle Saxon, he was granted a hearing before the Suffrage Committee of the convention.

The question of incorporating woman suffrage in the new State constitution was debated at intervals from Aug. 9 to 15, 1889. The fight for the measure was led by Edward Eldridge and W. S. Bush. In a long and able argument Mr. Eldridge reviewed the recent decision of the Supreme Court and made an eloquent plea for justice to women. Substitutes granting to women Municipal Suffrage, School Suffrage, the right to hold office, the privilege of voting on the constitution, all were defeated. Finally a compromise was forced by which it was agreed to submit a separate amendment giving them Full Suffrage, to be voted on at the same time as the rest of the constitution, women themselves not being allowed to vote upon it.[459]

Only two-and-a-half months remained before election, the women were practically unorganized, there were few speakers, no money, and the towns were widely scattered. Miss Matilda Hindman of Pennsylvania and Mrs. Clara Bewick Colby of Washington, D. C., editor of the Woman's Tribune, came on and canvassed the State. Both were effective speakers and they received as much local assistance as possible, but all the money and influence which could be commanded by the disreputable element that had suffered from the woman's vote were brought to bear against the amendment, and its defeat was inevitable.

The constitution was adopted Nov. 5, 1889, the woman suffrage amendment receiving 16,521 ayes, 35,913 noes; an adverse majority of 19,392.

In 1890 the first State Legislature conferred School Suffrage on women to the extent of voting for trustees and directors.

The political campaign of 1896 was one in which reform of all kinds was unusually in evidence. Three women sat as delegates in the State Fusion Convention at Ellensburg. Mrs. Laura E. Peters, president of the suffrage club at Port Angeles, was a Populist delegate and was chosen a member of the Platform Committee. Through her efforts a suffrage plank was inserted in the platform of that branch of the convention.

The president of the State Suffrage Association, Mrs. Homer M. Hill, said in her official report: "The People's Party was composed of Silver Republicans, Populists and Democrats. At the State convention these met in separate sessions. The Democrats voted down a resolution demanding that the Committee on Platform bring in a report favoring the amendment. The Silver Republicans passed one 'commending the action of the Free Silver party in presenting to the people the proposed amendment to the constitution.' The Populists inserted in their platform a plank declaring that 'direct legislation without equal suffrage would be government by but one-half of the people,' and unequivocally favored the amendment.

"Although each of these three parties had its own platform, the combination formed the People's Party and made its fight upon one composed of eleven planks, or articles of faith, to which all three agreed, but equal suffrage was not one of them. Therefore the so-called union platform, minus suffrage, was the one generally published and used as the basis of the campaign speeches. Because of this no speaker of the People's Party was obliged to mention the amendment, and it was avoided as an issue in the campaign; the State Central Committee permitted each speaker to say what he pleased personally, but he was not allowed to commit the party or to urge men to vote for it. Nearly every one, however, advocated equal suffrage.

"The Republicans, in convention at Tacoma, adopted the following: 'Firmly believing in the principle of equal rights to all and special privileges to none, we recommend to the voters of the State a careful consideration of the proposed constitutional amendment granting equal suffrage;' and this always was published as part of the platform. A few of the leading Republican orators advocated the amendment and none spoke against it. Its defeat is commonly attributed to the fact that 20,000 of the People's party did not vote upon it, and that the Republicans passed the word a short time before election to vote against it.