History of Woman Suffrage/Volume 3/Chapter 51

 

CHAPTER LI.

COLORADO.

Great American Desert—Organized as a Territory, February 28, 1860—Gov. McCook's Message Recommending Woman Suffrage, 1870—Adverse Legislation— Hon. Amos Steck —Admitted to the Union, 1876— Constitutional Convention —Efforts to Strike Out the Word "Male"—Convention to Discuss Woman Suffrage—School Suffrage Accorded—State Association Formed, Alida C. Avery, President—Proposition for Full Suffrage Submitted to the Popular Vote—A Vigorous Campaign —Mrs. Campbell and Mrs. Patterson of Denver—Opposition by the Clergy—Their Arguments Ably Answered—D. M. Richards—The Amendment Lost—The Rocky Mountain News.

That our English readers may appreciate the Herculean labors that the advocates of suffrage undertake in this country in canvassing a State, they must consider the vast territory to be traveled over, in stages and open wagons where railroads are scarce. Colorado, for example, covers an area of 104,500 square miles. It is divided by the Rocky Mountains running north and south, with two hundred lofty peaks rising thirteen thousand feet above the level of the sea, and some still higher. To reach the voters in the little mining towns a hundred miles apart, over mountains such as these, involves hardships that only those who have made the journeys can understand. But there is some compensation in the variety, beauty and grandeur of the scenery, with its richly wooded valleys, vast parks and snow-capped mountains. It is the region for those awake to the sublime in nature to reverently worship some of her grandest 'works that no poet can describe nor artist paint. Here, too, the eternal struggle for liberty goes on, for the human soul can never be attuned to harmony with its surroundings, especially the grand and glorious, until the birthright of justice and equality is secured to all.

For a history of the early efforts made in the Centennial State to secure equal rights for women, we are indebted to Mrs. Mary G. Campbell and Mrs. Katharine G.Patterson, two sisters who have been actively interested in the suffrage movement in Colorado, as follows:

In 1848, while those immortal women whose names will be found on many another page of the volume in which this chapter is included, were asking in the convention at Seneca Falls, N. Y., that their equal membership in the human family might be admitted by their husbands, fathers and sons, Colorado, unnamed and unthought of, was still asleep with her head above the clouds, Only two mountain-tops in all the world were nearer heaven than hers, and they, in far Thibet, had seen the very beginnings of the race which, after six thousand years, had not yet penetrated Colorado. Islanded in a cruel brown ocean of sand, she hid her treasures of gold and silver in her virgin bosom and dreamed, unstirred by any echoes of civilization. When she woke at last it was to the sound of an anvil chorus—to the ring of the mallet and drill, and the hoarse voices of men greedy only for gold.

In 1858, when the Ninth National Convention of women to demand their legal rights was in session in New York, there were only three white women in the now rich and beautiful city of Denver. Still another ten years of wild border life, of fierce vicissitudes, of unwritten tragedies enacted in forest and mine, and Colorado was organized into a territory with a population of 5,000 women and 25,000 men.

The first effort for suffrage was made in 1870, during the fifth session of the legislative assembly, soon after General Edward McCook was sent out by President Grant to fill the gubernatorial chair. In his message to the legislature, he promptly recommended to the attention of its members the question of suffrage for woman:

Before dismissing the subject of franchise, I desire to call your attention to one question connected with it, which you may deem of sufficient importance to demand some consideration at your hands before the close of the session. Our higher civilization has recognized woman's equality with man in all respects save one—suffrage. It has been said that no great reform was ever made without passing through three stages—ridicule, argument, and adoption. It rests with you to say whether Colorado will accept this reform in its first stage, as our sister territory of Wyoming has done, or in the last; whether she will be a leader or a follower; for the logic of a progressive civilization leads to the inevitable result of a universal suffrage.

This was the first gun of the campaign, and summoned to the field various contending forces, armed with ridicule, argument, or an optimistic diplomacy, urging an immediate surrender of the ground claimed. Bills favoring the enfranchisement of women were discussed both in the Territorial Council Chamber and in the lower House of the legislature. The subject was taken up by the press and the people, and not escaping its meed of ridicule, was seriously dealt with by both friend and enemy. Perhaps the western champions of woman's recognition as an intelligent part of the body politic were brought to understand the full meaning of her disabilities by their own experiences as territorial minors. Certain it is that the high spirit of the citizens of Colorado chafed intolerably under the temporary limitations of accustomed rights of sovereign manhood. The federal government, in the capacity of regent, sent to these territorial wards their officers and governors and fixed the rate of their taxation without full representation. These wards were indeed empowered, as were the people of their sister territories, to elect a delegate to the national congress, whose opinions upon territorial matters were allowed expression in that body, but who could no more enforce there his convictions upon important measures, by a vote, than could the most intelligent woman of this territory upon the question of his election to represent her interests.

In the Colorado papers of those days of territorial tutelage, there appeared repeatedly most impatient protests against these humiliating conditions of citizenship. With the attainment of statehood in 1876 there came to the men of Colorado a restoration of their full rights as citizens of the Republic. According to the proscriptive usage, the humiliating conditions of citizenship without the ballot, remained to the women of the Centennial State; and those of their reënfranchised brothers who had felt most keenly their own unaccustomed restrictions, were without doubt the foremost advocates of the movement to secure the full recognition of women's rights.

The majority of the territorial legislative assembly of 1870 was unexpectedly Democratic, and almost as unexpected was the favor promptly shown by the Democratic members to the passage of the bill proposing woman suffrage. The measure was indeed characterized by the opposing Republicans, as "the great Democratic reform," and for weeks seemed destined to triumph through Democratic votes, in spite of the frivolous and serious opposition of the Republican minority, and the few Democratic members who deserted what then seemed the party policy upon this question. The pleas urged in advocacy of the new movement, as well as the protests urged against it, were substantially the same as were used in the East at that stage of the question. Accompanying them were the extravagancies of hope and fear incident to the early consideration of every suggested change in a long-accepted social order. An impossible Utopia was promised on the one hand no less confidently than was predicted upon the other a dire iconoclasm of the sacred shrine of long adored ideals, as a consequence of simply granting to intelligent women a privilege justly their due. Both the derision and the adverse reasoning of the alarmists were well met by fearless friends, in Council and House. Bills looking to the removal of woman's disabilities were referred in each to a select committee for consideration, on January 19. The majority report to the House through the chairman of its special committee, M. DeFrance, was an able advocacy of the measure under consideration, while the adverse recommendation of the Council committee was accompanied by an excellent report by Hon. Amos Steck, setting forth clearly the reasons of the minority for their favorable views. After hearing the reports, both Houses went into committee of the whole for a free discussion upon the question.

"The criterion of civilization, physical force," "Strength as the measure of right,'"—as recent writers have defined the divine right of might— seemed the basis of reasoning with those who claimed that woman should not be given the ballot because she might not carry the sword. Dark pictures were drawn of possible women as electors plunging their country into wars, from whose consequences they would themselves suffer nothBy the more hopeful it was urged that the mighty heart, the moral force of humanity, as represented in womanhood, and united with clear womanly intelligence, would prove a greater power in all State interests than sword or bayonet.

The strongest speaker in the legislature upon the subject of suffrage—President Hinsdale of the Council—was, unfortunately, a bitter enemy of the proposed reform. Yet some of his most forcible utterances made in committee of the whole, were excellent arguments in favor of, rather than against the measure. Excellent arguments in favor of the bill in question were made by leading members of the House—Messrs. Lea, Shepard and DeFrance. By invitation of the legislature, that body was addressed by a prominent member of the Denver bar, Mr. Willard Teller, the brother of one of our U. S. senators. The hall was filled by an interested audience to hear Mr. Teller's address, which was a strong presentation of the principles upon which rest the claims of American citizens to universal suffrage.

Outside the assembly halls, Governor McCook and his beautiful, accomplished, and gracefully aggressive wife, strongly favored the affirmative of the question at issue, while Willard Teller, D. M. Richards and other distinguished men and women of the territory were active friends during the contest. In the press, the measure had a most influential support in the Daily Colorado Tribune, a well-conducted Denver journal, edited by Mr. R. W. Woodbury. Space in its columns was given to well-written articles by contributors interested in the success of the cause, and many able editorials appeared, embodying strong arguments in favor of the reform, or answering the opposing bitterness and frivolity of its contemporary the Rocky Mountain News. The interest in the proposed innovation was indeed quite general throughout the territory, but wherever the subject was discussed, in the legislative halls, in private conversation, editorial column, or correspondence of the press, the grounds argumentatively traversed were the same highways and byways of reason and absurdity which have been so often since gone over.

There was perhaps one lion in the way of establishing universal suffrage in the West, which the eastern advocates did not fear. It was said that our intelligent women could not be allowed to vote, whatever the principles upon which the right might be claimed, because in that case, the poor, degraded Chinese women who might reach our shores, would also be admitted to the voting list, and what then would become of our proud, Caucasian civilization? Whether it was the thought of the poor Mongolian slave at the polls, or some other equally terrifying vision of a yearly visit of American women to the centre of some voting precinct, the majority of the Colorado legislative assembly of 1870, in spite of all the free discussion of the campaign of that year, decided adversely. In the latter days of the session, the bill having taken the form of a proposition to submit the question at issue to the already qualified voters of the territory, was lost in the council chamber by a majority of one, and in the House by a two-thirds majority, leaving to the defeated friends of the reform as their only reward, a consciousness of strength gained in the contest. A few years more made Denver a city beautiful for habitation, mad Colorado a garden, filled that goodly land with capable men, and intelligent, spirited women. Statehood had been talked of, but lost, and then men began to say: "The one hundredth birthday of our American inde pendence is so near, let us make this a centennial State; let the entrance into the Union be announced by the same bells that shall ring in our national anniversary." And so it was decreed. Mindful of 1776—mindful too, of the second declaration made by the women at the first equal rights convention in 1848, the friends of equality in Colorado determined to gird themselves for a supreme effort in anticipation of the constitution that was to be framed for the new State to be.

A notice was published asking all persons favorable to suffrage for women, to convene in Denver, January 10, to take measures to secure the recognition of woman's equality under the pending constitution. In pursuance to this call, a large and eager audience filled Unity Church long before the hour appointed for the meeting. A number of the orthodox clergy were present. The Rev. Mrs. Wilkes of Colorado-Springs, opened the exercises with prayer. Mrs. Margaret W. Campbell of Massachusetts was then introduced, and said: "This convention was called to present woman's claims to the ballot, from her own stand-point, and to take such measures to secure the recognition of her equality in the constitution of Colorado, as the friends gathered from different parts of the territory may think proper. We do not ask that women shall take the places of men, or usurp authority over them; we only ask that the principles upon which our government is founded shall be applied to women.

Rev. Mrs. Wilkes made an especial point of the fact that in Colorado Springs women owned one-third of the taxable property, and yet were obliged (at the recent spring election) to see the bonds for furnishing a supply of pure water, voted down because women had no voice in the matter. This had been a serious mistake, as the physicians of the place had pronounced the present supply impure and unwholesome. She referred to the fears of many that the constitution, freighted with woman suffrage, might sink, when it would else be buoyant, and begged her hearers not to fear such a burden would endanger it. The convention continued through two days with enthusiastic speeches from Mr. D. M. Richards and Rev. Mr. Wright, who preferred to be introduced as the nephew of Dr. Harriot K. Hunt of Boston. Letters were read from Lucy Stone and Judge Kingman, and an extract from the message of Governor Thayer of Wyoming, in which he declared the results of woman suffrage in that territory to have been beneficial and its influence favorable to the best interests of the community. A territorial society was formed with an efficient board of officers;^[1] resolutions, duly discussed, were adopted, and the meeting closed with a carefully-prepared address by Dr. Avery, the newly-elected president of the territorial association.

The committee ^[2] appointed to wait upon the constitutional convention were received courteously by that body, and listened to with respectful attention. One would have thought the gentlemen to whom the arguments and appeals of such women were addressed would have found it in their hearts to make some reply, even while disclaiming the official character of their act; but they preserved a decorous and non-committal, if not incurious silence, and the ladies withdrew. The press said, the morning after their visit: "The gentlemen were all interested and amused by the errand of the ladies." The morning following, the constitutional convention was memorialized by the Suffrage Association of Missouri, and was also presented with a petition signed by a thousand citizens of Colorado, asking that in the new constitution no distinction be made on account of sex. This was only the beginning. Petitions came in afterwards, numerously signed, and were intended to have the force of a sort of ante-election vote.

Denver presented an interesting social aspect at this time. It was as if the precursive tremor of a moral earthquake had been felt, and people, only half awake, did not know whether to seek safety in the house, or outside of it. Women especially were perplexed and inquiring, and it was observed that those in favor of asking a recognition of their rights in the new State, were the intelligent and leading ladies of the city. The wives of ministers, of congressmen, of judges, the prominent members of Shakespeare clubs, reading circles, the directors of charitable institutions,—these were the ones who first ranged themselves on the side of equal rights, clearly proving that the man was right who pointed out the danger of allowing women to learn the alphabet.

When February 15 came, it was a momentous day for Colorado. The report of the Committee on Suffrage and Elections was to come up for final action. Asa matter of fact there were two reports; that of the minority was signed by two members of the committee, Judge Bromwell, whose breadth and scholarship were apparent in his able report, and a Mexican named Agapita Vigil, a legislator from Southern Colorado where Spanish is the dominant tongue. Mr. Vigil spoke no English, and was one of those representatives for whose sake an interpreter was maintained during the session of the convention.

Ladies were present in large numbers. Some of the gentlemen celebrated the occasion by an unusual spruceness of attire, and others by being sober enough to attend to business. The report with three-fifths of the signatures, after setting forth that the subject had had careful conwent on to state the qualifications of voters, namely, that all should be male citizens, with one exception, and that was, that women might vote for school district officers.

Mr. A. K. Yount of Boulder, spoke in favor of the motion to strike out the word "male" in section 1: "That every male person over the age of 21 years, possessing the necessary qualifications, shall be entitled to vote," etc. He called attention to the large number of petitions which had been sent in, asking for this, and to the fact that not a single remonstrance had been received. He believed the essential principles of human freedom were involved in this demand, and he insisted that justice required that women should help to make the laws by which they are governed. The amendment was lost by a vote of 24 to 8.

Mr. Storm offered an amendment that women be permitted to vote for, and hold the office of, county superintendent of schools. This also was lost. The only other section of the report which had any present interest to women, was the one reading:

Section 2. The General Assembly may at any time extend by law the right of suffrage to persons not herein enumerated, but no such law shall take effect or be in force until the same shall have been submitted to a vote of the people, at a general election, and approved by a majority of all the votes cast for and against such law.

After much discussion it was voted that the first General Assembly should provide a law whereby the subject should be submitted to a vote of the electors.

After this the curtain fell, the lights were put out, and all the atmosphere and mise en scène of the drama vanished. It was well known, however, that another season would come, the actors would reäppear, and an "opus" would be given; whether it should turn out a tragedy, or a Miriam's song of deliverance, no one was able to predict. Meantime, the women of Colorado—to change the figure—bivouacked on the battle-field, and sent for reïnforcements against the fall campaign. They held themselves well together, and used their best endeavors to educate public sentiment.

A column in the Denver Rocky Mountain News, a pioneer paper then edited by W. N. Byers, was offered the woman suffrage association, through which to urge our claims. The column was put into the hands of Mrs. Campbell, the wife of E. L. Campbell, of the law firm of Patterson & Campbell of Denver, for editorship. This lady, from whose editorials quotations will be given, was too timid (she herself begs us to say cowardly) to use her name in print, and so translated it into its German equivalent of Schlachtfeld, thus nullifying whatever of weight her own name would have carried in the way of personal and social endorsement of an unpopular cause. Her sister, Mrs. T. M. Patterson, an early and earnest member of the Colorado Suffrage Association, "bore testimony" as courageously and constantly as her environment permitted.

Mrs. Gov. McCook, as previously stated, had been the first woman in Colorado to set the example of a spirited claim to simple political justice for her sex, but she, alas! at the date now reached in our sketch, was dead—in her beautiful youth, in the first flower of her sweet, bright womanhood. Her loss to the cause can best be measured by those who know what an immense uplifting power is present when an intelligent man in an influential position joins his personal and political force to his wife's personal and social force in the endeavor to accomplish an object dear to both.

It is a pity not to register here, however inadequately, some outline of many figures that rise to form a part of the picture of Colorado in 1876-7. When liberty shall have been achieved, and all citizens shall be comfortably enjoying its direct and indirect blessings, this book should be found to have preserved in the amber of its pages the names of those who bravely wrought for freedom in that earlier time. Would that one might indeed summon them all by a roll-call! But they will not answer— they say only: "Let our work stand for us, be its out-come small or great."

To Dr. Alida C. Avery, however, whatever the outcome, a weighty obligation is due from all past, present and future laborers in this cause in Colorado. She it was who set at work and kept at work the interplay of ideas and efforts which accomplished what was done. Through her personal acquaintance with the immortals at the East, Lucy Stone, Susan B. Anthony, Henry B. Blackwell, she drew them to Colorado during the campaign about to be described, and with them came others. Mrs. M. W. Campbell and her husband reappeared to do faithful service, and then came also Miss Lelia Patridge of Philadelphia, a young, graceful, and effective speaker,—so the local papers constantly describe her, and then came, in the person of Miss Matilda Hindman of Pittsburg Pa., one of the' ablest women of the whole campaign. Gentle, persuasive, womanly, she was at the same time armed at all points with fact, argument, and illustration, and her zeal was only equaled by her power of sustained labor.

Many of these same qualities belong to Mrs. M. F. Shields, of Colorado Springs, one of the committee on constitutional work in the campaign of 1876, and an ardent, unceasing, unselfish laborer in the church, in suffrage and temperance, for more than ten years. She did not lecture, but "talked "; talked to five hundred men at a time as if they were her own sons, and only needed to be shown they were conniving at injustice, in order to turn about and do the right thing.. This same element of "motherliness "it was, which gained her the respectful attention of an audience of the roughest and most ignorant Cornish miners up in Caribou, who would listen to no other woman speaking upon the subject. When the members of the famous constitutional committee were considering the suffrage petition, prior to making their report, Judge Stone of Pueblo, tried to persuade the Spanish-speaking member that to grant the franchise to women would be to be false to his party, as those women were all Democrats. But Senor Vigil replied that he had been talking through his interpreter to the "nice old lady, who smiled so much "(meaning Mrs. Shields), and he knew what they asked was all right, and he should vote for it.

Of the men who were willing to obey Paul's entreaty to "help those women," must be named in the front rank David M. Richards of Denver, a pioneer of '59, and as brave and generous and true a heart as ever beat in time to the pulse of progress, Rev. B. F. Crary, a true apostolic helper, Mr. Henry C. Dillon, a young western Raleigh for knightly chivalry, Hon. J. B. Belford, member of congress then and now, Judge H. P. H. Bromwell, who needs no commendation from the historian, as his eloquent minority report speaks adequately for him; these, and very many more, both men and women, have, as the French say, "deserved well of the State and of their generation."

And it was once more to the aid of these men and women that the East sent reïnforcements as soon as the winter of 1877 was well ushered in. An annual convention was announced for January 15, in Denver. When the bitter cold evening came it seemed doubtful if any great number of persons would be present, but the large Lawrence street Methodist Church was, on the contrary, packed to its utmost capacity. Rev. Mr. Eads, pastor of the church, opened the meeting with prayer, and Dr. Avery, as president of the association, gave a brief résumé of the work during its one year of existence. Colonel Henry Logan of Boulder (formerly of Illinois), made a manly and telling speech in favor of a measure which he called one of axiomatic justice. Mrs. Wright of New York, after a piquant address, announced the meeting of the convention for the next day. On the following morning a business session was held, and officers elected for the year.^[3] In the afternoon speeches were made by Dr. Crary, Mrs. Shields, and Mr. David Boyd of Greeley, and in the evening by Mr. Henry C. Dillon and Rev. J. R. Eads, the closing and crowning speech of the convention being given by Miss Laura Hanna of Denver, a petite, pretty young girl, whose remarks made a bonne bouche with which to close the feast. Interest in the subject rose to fever heat before October. Pulpit, press and fireside were occupied with its discussion. The most effective, and at the same time, exasperating opposition, came from the pulpit, but there was also vigorous help from the same quarter. The Catholic Bishop preached a series of sermons and lectures, in which he fulminated all the thunders of apostolic and papal revelation against women who wanted to vote:

Though strong-minded women who are not satisfied with the disposition of Providence and who wish to go beyond the condition of their sex, profess no doubt to be Christians, do they consult the Bible?—do they follow the Bible? I fear not. Had God intended to create a companion for man, capable of following the same pursuits, able to undertake the same labors, he would have created another man; but he created a woman, and she fell. * * * The class of women wanting suffrage are battalions of old maids disappointed in love—women separated from their husbands or divorced by men from their sacred obligations—women who, though married, wish to hold the reins of the family government, for there never was a woman happy in her home who wished for female suffrage. *** Who will take charge of those young children (if they consent to have any) while mothers as surgeons are operating indiscriminately upon the victims of a terrible railway disaster? *** No kind hus-

band will refuse to nurse the baby on Sunday (when every kind of business is stopped) in order to let his wife attend church; but even then, as it is not his natural duty, he will soon be tired of it and perhaps get impatient waiting for the mother, chiefly when the baby is crying.

These, with the omnipresent quotations from St. Paul to the effect that women shall keep silence in the church, etc., formed the argument of the Bishop in two or three lengthy sermons. Indignant men, disgusted with the caliber of the opposition and yet obliged to notice it on account of the position of the divine, made ample rejoinders. Rev. Dr. Crary of Golden, in an exhaustive review of the Bishop's discourse, deprecated the making permanent and of universal application the commands which with Paul were evidently temporary and local, and said half the churches in Christendom would be closed if these were literally obeyed:

"Women should not usurp authority, therefore men should usurp all authority." This is the sort of logic we have always heard from men who are trotting along in the wake of progress and howling because the centuries do not stop rolling onward. In barbarous regions Paul is paraded against educating girls at all. In half-civilized nations Paul is doing service against educating girls except in the rudiments. Among people who are just beginning to see the hill-tops of a higher, nobler world, Paul is still on duty crowding off women from high-schools and colleges. Proud universities to-day have Paul standing guard over medical meanness and pushing down aspiring female souls from the founts of knowledge. Within our memory Paul has been the standing demonstration in favor of slavery, intemperance and the oppression of women.

Another sermon in which the Bishop lays solemn stress on the one sacred, inevitable duty of women to become wives and mothers, was answered by Mr. David Boyd of Greeley, who, among other things, asks the Bishop:

How, in view of the injunction to increase and multiply, he can justify the large celibate class created by positive command of the Catholic church, not only by the ordination of priests, but by the constant urging of the church that women should become the barren brides of Christ by taking on them the vows of nuns.

The Bishop published his lectures in pamphlet form, that their influence might be far-reaching, and curiously enough, the very same lectures were printed and scattered by the friends of suffrage as the best sort of document for the campaign now fairly inaugurated. D. M. Richards, the able chairman of the executive committee, and Dr. Avery, president of the association, showed themselves capable of both conceiving and executing a plan of operations which had the merit of at least deserving victory.

There was no lack of pens to defend women's claim to equal chances in the struggle for existence. In Denver, the Rocky Mountain News and the Times planted themselves fairly and squarely in an affirmative attitude, and gave generous aid to the effort. The Tribune's columns were in a state of chronic congestion from a plethora of protests, both feminine and masculine. One young lawyer said: "If suffrage is to come, let it come by man's call, and not by woman's clamor"; and, "When all the women of the land can show the ability to rear a family, and at the same time become eminent in some profession or art, then men will gladly welcome them." Whereupon the women naturally rushed into print to protest against the qualifications required of them, compared with those required of men.

It is safe to say, that from the middle of January, 1877, until the following October, the most prominent theme of public discussion was this question of suffrage for women. Miners discussed it around their camp-fires, and "freighters" on their long slow journeys over the mountain trails argued pro and con, whether they should "let" women have the ballot. Women themselves argued and studied and worked earnestly. One lawyer's wife, who declared that no refined woman would contend for such a right, and that no woman with self-respect would be found electioneering, herself urged every man of her acquaintance to vote against the measure, and even triumphantly reported that she had spoken to seventy-five men who were strangers to her, and secured their promise to vote against the pending amendment. This, however, must not be mistaken for electioneering.

On Wednesday, August 15, an equal rights mass-meeting was held in Denver, for the purpose of organizing a county central committee, and for an informal discussion of plans for the campaign. Judge H. P. H. Bromwell and H. C. Dillon spoke, with earnest repetition of former pledges of devotion to the cause, and Gov. Evans said:

Equal suffrage is necessary to equal rights. It is fortunate that we have in Colorado an opportunity of bringing to bear the restraining, purifying and ennobling influence of women upon politics. It is a reform that will require all the benign influences of the country to sustain and carry out, and, as I hope for the perpetuation of our free institutions, I dare not neglect the most promising and potent means of purifying politics, and I regard the influence of women as this means.

Major Bright of Wyoming, was introduced as the man who framed and brought in the first bill for the enfranchisement of women. Judge W. B. Mills said: "It is an anomalous condition of affairs which made it necessary for a woman to ask a man whether she should vote," and referring to all the reforms and changes of the last half century, predicted that the extension of the franchise to woman would be the next in order.

The meeting was a full and fervid one, and great confidence of success was felt and expressed. A committee of seventeen was appointed^[4] and this committee did its full duty in districting the territory and sending out speakers. Mr. Henry B. Blackwell, Lucy Stone and Miss Anthony arrived almost immediately after this, and henceforth the advocates of suffrage swarmed through the rocky highways and byways of Colorado as eagerly, if not as multitudinously, as its gold seekers. Mrs. Campbell wrote to the Woman's Journal:

We have now been at work two weeks. Some of our meetings are very encouraging, some not so much so. But the meetings are only one feature of the work. We stop along the way and search out all the leading men in each voting precinct, and secure the names of those who will work on election day. We do more talking out of meeting than in. We rode thirty-five miles yesterday, and arrived here after six o'clock in

the evening. While Mr. Campbell was taking care of the horse, I filled out bills before taking off my hat and duster; in fifteen minutes they were being distributed, and at eight o'clock I was speaking to a good-sized audience.

On October 1, a monster meeting was held in the Lawrence street Methodist Church, and was addressed by Lucy Stone, Miss Matilda Hindman, Mrs. Campbell, and Dr. Avery. The most intense interest was manifested, and the excellent speeches heartily applauded.

The next day (Sunday) the Rev. Dr. Bliss of the Presbyterian Church, preached a sermon in his own pulpit, on "Woman Suffrage and the Model Wife and Mother," in which he alluded to "certain brawling, ranting women, bristling for their rights," and said God had intended woman to be a wife and mother, and the eternal fitness of things forbade her to be anything else. If women could vote, those who were wives now would live in endless bickerings with their husbands over politics, and those who were not wives would not marry."

These utterences brought out many replies. One was in the column edited by "Mrs. Schlachtfeld," and may perhaps be quoted as a specimen of her editorial work, such being, as we have intimated, her one service to suffrage, and that incognito:

One of the daily, dismal forecasts of the male Cassandras of our time is, that in the event of women becoming emancipated from the legal thralldom that disables them, they will acquire a sudden distaste for matrimony, the direful consequences of which will be a gradual extermination of homes, and the extinction of the human species. This is an artless and extremely suggestive lament. In the first place—accepting that prophecy as true—why will women not marry? Because, they will then be independent of men; because in a fair field for competition where ability and not sex shall determine employment and remuneration, women will have an equal chance with men for distinction and reward, for triumphs commercial and professional as well as social, and hence, needing men less, either to make them homes, or to gratify indirectly their ambitions, their affections will become atrophied, the springs of domestic life will disappear in the arid sands of an unfeminine publicity, and marriage, with all the wearying cares and burdens and anxieties that it inevitably brings to every earnest woman, will be regarded more and more as a state to be shunned. The few who enter it will be compassionated much as a minister is who undertakes a dangerous foreign mission. Men will stand mateless, and the ruins of the hymeneal altars everywhere crumble mournfully away, and be known to tradition only by their vanishing inscriptions: "To the unknown god." But it is ill jesting over that which tugs at every woman's heartstrings and which impinges upon the very life-centres of society. If women, on being made really free to choose, will not marry, then we must arraign men on the charge of having made the married state so irksome and distasteful to women that they prefer celibacy when they dare enjoy it. Observe, however, the inconsistency of another line of reasoning running parallel with this in the floating literature of the day: "Motherhood," these writers say, "is the natural vocation of women; is, indeed, an instinct so mighty, even if unconscious, that it draws women toward matrimony with a yearning as irresistible as that which pulls the great sea upon the land in blind response to the moon." If this be true, society is safe, and women will still be wives, no matter how much they may exult in political freedom, no matter how alluringly individual careers may open before them, nor how accessible the tempting prizes of human ambition may become.

Well, the day came,—the dies irae for one side or the other, and it proved to be for the "one." The measure was defeated. Ten thousand votes were for it, twenty thousand against it. Women remained at the polls all day, distributing ballots, and answering objections. They had flowers on all the little tables where the tickets were heaped, on which were printed the three words, "Woman Suffrage Approved," words for many pregnant with hope for a new impetus to civilization, for others with a misfortune only to be compared to that which happened in Greece when Ino boiled the seed corn of a whole kingdom, and thus not only lost the crop of that year, but, by the subtle interplay of the laws by which evolution proceeds, set back humanity for a period not to be reckoned in years. Mrs. H. S. Mendenhall of Georgetown wrote to Dr. Avery on the evening of election day:

Before this reaches you the telegraph will have given you the result of the day's work all over the State, but I thought I would jot down a line while the experiences of the last ten hours were fresh in my mind. Last evening our committee appointed ladies to represent the interests of woman suffrage at the polls. To my surprise, many evaded the work who were, nevertheless, strongly in favor of the measure. Mrs. Dr. Collins and I were the only ones at the lowest and most important precinct until one o'clock, when we were joined by the wife of the Presbyterian minister. Our course was somewhat as follows: On the approach of a voter, we would ask him, "have you voted?" If he had, we usually troubled him no further; if he had not, we asked, "Can you vote for woman suffrage?" If he approved, we supplied him with his ticket; if he disapproved, we asked him for his objections, and we have listened to some comical ones to-day. One man asked me, though not rudely, "Who is cooking your husband's dinner?" I promptly invited him to dine with us. Another spoke of neglected household duties, and when I mentioned a loaf of bread I had just baked, and should be glad to have him see, he said, "I expect you can bake bread," but he voted against us. The Methodist men were for us; the Presbyterians and Episcopalians very fairly so, and the Roman Catholics were not all against us, some of the prominent members of that church working and voting for woman suffrage. The liquor interest went entirely against us, as far as I know.

The observations of the day have led me to several general conclusions, to which, of course, exceptions exist: (1) Married men will vote for suffrage if their wives appreciate its importance. (2) Men without family ties, and especially if they have associated with a bad class of women, will vote against it. (3) Boys who have just reached their majority will vote against it more uniformly than any other class of men. We were treated with the utmost respect by all except the last class. Destitute of experience, and big with their own importance, these young sovereigns will speak to a woman twice their years with a flippancy which the most ignorant foreigner of mature age would not use, and I have to-day been tempted to believe that no one is fitted to exercise the American franchise under twenty-five years of age.

The main objection which I heard repeatedly urged was, women do not want to vote. This seems to be the great stumbling-block to our brethren. Men were continually saying that their wives told them not to vote for woman suffrage. If we are defeated this time I know we can succeed in the next campaign, or just as soon as we can educate enough prominent women up to the point of coming out plainly on the subject. Then all men, or all but the vicious men who always vote against every good thing, will give in right away.

Lucy Stone, in a letter to the Woman's Journal describes similar scenes enacted that day in Denver; speaks of the order and quiet prevailing at the polls, of the flowers on all the tables, and, in spite of the strangeness of the occasion, of the presence of women as evidently a new and beneficent element there. Rev. Dr. Ellis of the Baptist Church, who, on the Sunday before had preached from the text, "Help those Women," was using his influence to convert those doubtful or opposed. Rev. Mr. Bliss, who had declared in his pulpit that "the only two women the Bible mentioned as having meddled in politics were Jezebel and Herodias," was there also, to warn men not to vote for equal rights for women. At other polls I saw colored men, once slaves, electioneering and voting against the rights of women. When remonstrated with, one said: "We want the women at home cooking our dinners." A shrewd colored woman asked whether they had provided any dinner to cook, and added that most of the colored women there had to earn their dinner as well as cook it.

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Hear the conclusion of the whole matter. In the words of the last editorial of the woman's column in the Rocky Mountain News:

Woman's hour has not yet struck! The chimes that were waiting to ring out the tidings of her liberty—the candles furtively stored against an illumination which should typify a new influx of light, the achievement of a victory whose meaning and promise at least seemed to those who both prayed and worked for it, neither trivial nor selfish—all these are relegated to the guardianship of Patience and Hope. Colorado has refused to enfranchise its women.******The Germans, the Catholics, and the negroes were said to be against us. Naturally, those who themselves most keenly feel, or most recently have felt, the galling yoke of arbitrary rule, are most disposed to derive a certain enjoyment from the daily contemplation of a noble class still in bondage.*****But all opposition, in whatever guise, comes back at last to be written under one rubric—the immaturity of woman, We make this dispassionate statement of a fact. We feel neither scorn nor anger, and we trust that we shall excite none. It is a fault which time will cure, but meantime it is the grand factor in our account. Every other argument has been met— every other stronghold of opposition taken. Woman's claim to the ballot has been shown to rest in justice on the very foundation stone of democratic government—has been, from the Christian standpoint, as completely exonerated from the charge of impiety as ever anti-slavery and anti-polygamy were, and the fact which was the slogan of the anti-suffragists still remains: the mass of the women do not want it. We do not quarrel with the fact, but state it to give the real reason for our failures—the real objective point for our future work. The complacency with which we are able to state without fear of contradiction that the body of intelligent and thoughtful women do want suffrage must not obscure our perception of the equal truth of what we have just stated above. To accept this verity and turn our energies toward the emancipation of our own sex—toward their emancipation from frivolous aims, petty prejudices, and that attitude toward the other sex which is really the sycophancy born of vanity and weakness; to make them recognize the State as a multiplication of their own families, and patriotism as the broadening of their love of home; to make them see that that mother will be most respected whose son does not, when a downy beard is grown, suddenly tower above her in the supercilious enjoyment of an artificial superiority—a superiority which consists simply, as Figaro says, in his having taken the trouble to be born; to make them see, finally, that in the highest exercise of all the powers with which God has endowed her, woman can no more refuse the duties of citizenship, than she can refuse the duties of wifehood and motherhood, once having accepted those sacred relations. This is our first duty, and this the scope of our work, if we would attain suffrage in 1879, or even in 1900.

 

1. President, Alida C. Avery, M. D., Denver. Vice-Presidents, Rev. Mr. Harford, Denver; Mr. J. E. Washburn, Big Thompson; Mrs. H. M. Lee. Longmont; Mrs. M. M.Sheetz, Cañon City; Mrs. L. S. Ruhn, Del Norte; Mr. N. C. Meeker, Greeley; Hon. Willard Teller, Central; Mr. D. M. Richards, Denver; Mr. J. B. Harrington, Littleton; Mr. A. E. Lee, Boulder; Rev. Wm. Shephard, Cajion City. Recording Secretary, Miss Eunice D. Sewall, Denver. Corresponding Secretary, Mrs. A. L. Washburn, Big Thompson. Treasurer, Mrs. I. T. Hanna, Denver. Executive Committee, Mrs. M. F. Shields, Colorado Springs; Mr. A. L. Ellis, Boulder; Mrs. M. E. Hale, Denver; Mr. W. A. Wilkes, Colorado Springs; Mr. J. R. Hanna, Denver; Mrs. S. C. Wilber, Greeley; Rev. Dr. Crary, Pueblo.
2. Of the membership of this committee a grateful word is to be said: Mr. Campbell is a woman of agreeable and stately presence, and adds to thorough information on all points connected with the claims made in this campaign, an unusual facility and persuasiveness of language. Mrs. Shields is one of the most lovable women to be seen in the suffrage panorama; a tower of strength in her own family, where she is at once the comrade and commander of her children—the help-meet and friend of her husband. She inspires immediate confidence whenever she confronts an audience, Mrs, Washburn is also an attractive and large-hearted woman—a "Granger," and thus experienced in united, organized action of men and women for furthering the interests of both. Mrs. Hanna, a tall, graceful blonde. more reserved in speech but entirely intelligent in faith and in labor, represented to many men of the convention the very qualities they liked in their own wives.
3. President, Dr. Alida C. Avery of Denver; Vice-Presidents, D. Howe, Mrs. M. B. Hart, J. E. Washburn, Mrs. Emma Moody, Willard Teller, J. B. Harrington, A. E. Lee, and N. C. Meeker; Recording Secretary, Birks Carnforth of Denver; Corresponding Secretary, Mrs. T. M. Patterson of Denver; Treasurer, Mrs. H. C. Lawson of Denver; Executive Committee, D. M. Richards, Mrs. M. F. Shields, Mrs. M. E. Hale, H. McAllister, Mrs. Birks Carnforth, J. A. Dresser, A. J. Wilber, B. F. Crary, Miss Annie Figg, H. Logan, J. R. Eads, F. M. Ellis, C. Roby, Judge Jones, General Cameron, B. H. Eaton, Agapita Vigil, W. B. Felton, S. C. Charles and J. B. Campbell.
4. Consisting of Dr. R. G. Buckingham, chairman, Hon. John Evans, Judge G. W. Miller, Benjamin D. Spencer, A. J. Williams, Captain Richard Sopris, E. B. Sluth, John Armor, Hon. E. L. Campbell, John Walker, J. U. Marlow, Col. W. H. Bright, John G. Lilly, John S. McCool, J. W. Nesmyth, Henry O. Wagoner, and Dr. Martimore.