The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V

by Unknown

The convention was largely in the nature of a Colorado jubilee, as its women ten years before had cast their first vote, having been enfranchised in the autumn of 1893. The program for two evenings was given up to men and women from that State under the heading, Colorado Speaks for Itself, and it was most appropriate that Miss Anthony should preside. In presenting her Mrs. Catt said: "This is Miss Anthony's 84th birthday. We might have had a program filled with tributes to her and no doubt you would all have enjoyed them but instead we have what she will like better, a program to show, not that woman suffrage would be a good thing but that it has been a good thing. When Miss Anthony was born no woman in America could vote; no woman in modern times had been a lawyer. Tonight our ushers are seven women graduates of the Washington Law School, in the cap and gown which used to be forbidden to women. But there is something else going on tonight that is a more noteworthy celebration of her birthday. A measure to grant suffrage to women is pending in Denmark with the backing of the government and the women of that country have arranged a great demonstration in favor of the bill and have fixed the date for today because it is the birthday of Susan B. Anthony. Opponents of woman suffrage pay almost their whole attention to Colorado, so we have asked Colorado to come and talk for itself and it has responded magnificently. All the speakers pay their own expenses and have come this long way for the pleasure of saying a word for woman suffrage."

The Washington Post commented, "Miss Anthony received an ovation and it was delightful to see the pride with which she introduced the speakers—a former Governor, a woman State Superintendent of Public Instruction, chairmen of women's political committees and clubs, a woman county superintendent." Mrs. Katharine Cook, president of the Jane Jefferson Club, a Democratic organization of over a thousand women, spoke on The Ideals We Cherish and strongly emphasized that politics did not impair true womanliness or lower high ideals. "A nation can be no more free or pure or beautiful than the homes of which it is composed," she said. "Our country is but a greater home and no mother whose love for her fireside is more than an instinct or a sentiment can fail to see that the welfare of her home and family is vitally connected with an unstained ballot and an honest government. We women who believe in the right of suffrage and exercise it with the utmost wisdom with which we are gifted, use it for the preservation and defense and love of our homes ... and it is this spirit which is needed at the polls."

An entirely different but equally effective note was struck by Mrs. Ellis Meredith, a prominent journalist of Denver, who said during her address on Colorado Women and Legislation:

If I regarded the ballot merely as a right or a privilege or an end; a divine, far-off event toward which the whole creation moves and which, once attained, obviates its ever having to move afterward, I should say it does not make a bit of difference what we have done with it. If it is a right, who can question it? If it is a privilege, it is beyond question. If it is an end, it is achieved. But I do not regard it as any of these. To my mind the ballot is simply one of our many modern labor-saving inventions. It is the easiest way.... In the ten years that women have been voting in Colorado, I believe they have done at least five times as much as all the rest of the non-voting women in the United States together, and I base this modest claim upon the record of our statute books as compared with those of other States. Women stand relatively for the same thing everywhere and their first care is naturally and inevitably for the child. Whatever we have done, other women wish to do. In many States they have tried and failed. The difference is they are using stone-age methods while we have those of the 20th century."

No one who knows anything about our laws will attempt to deny that women have revolutionized the attitude of our State toward the child. Two-thirds of their work has been for the children.... These laws mean that in Colorado there are no children under 14 out of school; we have no child beggars nor street musicians and no girls vending anything. We have the best child labor law in the world. We have the strictest laws for the prevention of the abuse, moral, mental or physical of children, of any country, and the best enforced, not merely in our cities but throughout the entire State. We have the strongest compulsory school law and the most enlightened law concerning delinquent children of any, save where our laws have been copied.... What we have done has not been for ourselves but for the very least of these. It has been not for our fading today but for the dawning tomorrow. We have gone to our legislators with new ideas and have set a little child in the midst of them, and they have not been unmindful of the heavenly vision.

Mrs. Mary C. C. Bradford of Denver, president of the State Federation of Women's Clubs and county superintendent of schools, began her address, A Message to Garcia, by referring to the noted pamphlet of that title by Elbert Hubbard, "which," she said, "was translated into fourteen languages and called out a response from the hearts of the civilized world, because it set forth the duty and necessity of doing a thing yourself if you want it well done," and she made the application: "The women of Colorado have learned by experience the advantage of a direct vote over direct influence." She then told in a graphic manner the vast amount of good work the Federation of Clubs had been able to do through the power of the ballot and said: "During the last Legislature a department of the federation had to sit one day each week to confer with the many members who wanted its endorsement for their bills. Clubwomen in non-suffrage States do not have this experience. It is because we can carry the message to Garcia ourselves." "Mrs. Catt helped to win our mountain republic for suffrage," Mrs. Bradford said in conclusion, "and we women of Colorado pledge ourselves to Susan B. Anthony to work until death to help get it in other States."

Mrs. Isabella Churchill of Greeley spoke from the standpoint of the women outside the cities. "To the women in the small towns and country districts," she said, "it is a privilege and a pleasure to go to the polls on election day with the men of their family and vote for the candidates and measures they have had time to consider with care. In such places the question next day is not, 'Did the election go Democratic or Republican?' but 'Was it license or no license?' or else concerning some candidate or issue that they believe of importance to their community." Mrs. Helen Belford, chairman of the Women's State Democratic Committee, devoted her address largely to the development of the young women through the use of the ballot and the study of political questions. Mrs. Ina Thompson, chairman of the Republican Women's State Committee, gave a very interesting account of the way campaigns are conducted by women.

Mrs. Helen Loring Grenfell, as State Superintendent of Education, spoke with high authority and by her dignified and beautiful presence no less than by her ability made a deep impression on all who heard her. She pointed out that Colorado came into the Union in 1876 with School suffrage for women and through this they had always been able to keep the schools on a non-partisan basis. She showed that it paid more per capita for public schools than any other State, leaving even New York and Massachusetts behind; described its advanced position from kindergartens to training schools and colleges, with especial care in guarding the welfare of children, and continued:

In the East we hear of "the question of coeducation." It is not a question west of the Mississippi River, it never has been, it never will be. The eastern arrangement seems to us merely a curious survival of antiquated ideas, a kind of sex-consciousness which we have lost sight of in our care for the human being.... The place of State Superintendent has always been held by a woman since women became eligible. The first superintendent elected was a Republican, the second a Democrat, each holding the place for one term; the third, who is now serving her third term, was nominated as a Silver Republican but has really been elected and twice re-elected without regard to politics—an example of the independence of the vote where school affairs are concerned. There are 59 counties in Colorado and 33 of them, including most of those with the largest population, have women county superintendents....

I have found Colorado women much like their sisters elsewhere save that they have a broader view of public affairs and they take naturally a more active interest in the world's work. They have learned to think and to say what they think simply and freely in gatherings where men and women meet to discuss the vital concerns of life. They have not forgotten that they are women but they have come to know that they are also human beings, and, like Terence, they find nothing that concerns humanity foreign to them. Surely had we not been faithful in the smaller things, we should not have had these large opportunities given to us.... I can not help thinking that my sisters elsewhere have lost something rare and precious from their lives through the lack of that complete citizenship which has been bestowed upon the women of Colorado, and I hope the day may be near when those sisters may be made man's equal under the law of the land as they have always been under the law of God.