CHAPTER IV._Woman Suffrage By Federal Constitutional Amendment

THE STORY OF THE 1916 REFERENDA

Constitutional amendments were submitted to the voters of three states

in 1916, namely, Iowa, where the vote was taken June 5th on Primary

Day; South Dakota and West Virginia, where the vote was taken at the

general election in November. More than one influential newspaper

editorially discussed the returns with the comment that "the people"

of three states had refused to extend the suffrage to women.

An investigation unveils some ugly facts and raises significant

questions.

In 1882 a prohibition constitutional amendment was adopted by a large

majority in Iowa and was promptly set aside by the supreme court upon

a technicality. The wet and dry question has been a vexed political

issue ever since. The state now has prohibition by statutory

enactment. A constitutional amendment is pending, having passed the

Legislature of 1914, and is due to pass the Legislature of 1916.

The "wets" believing that women would generally support the proposed

prohibition amendment were extremely active in opposing the suffrage

amendment. Although the suffragists kept their question distinctly

separate from prohibition, the wet and dry issue, it was generally

admitted, would prove a determining factor.

Every judge of the Supreme Court, the United States Senators, the

Governor, most of the men prominent in Republican and Democratic

politics, most of the clergymen, most of the press and every woman's

state organization espoused the suffrage amendment.

Men familiar with Iowa politics advised the suffrage campaigners early

and late and all the time between that it was unnecessary to conduct

an intensive campaign as "everybody believed in it."

Yet despite this omnipresent optimism thousands of women gave

every possibility of their lives for months before to arouse public

sentiment, instruct and acquaint the men and women of the state

concerning the question.

The amendment was lost by about 10,000 votes. Were four of the

ninety-nine counties (Dubuque, Clinton, Scott and Des Moines counties)

lying along the Mississippi River, not included in the returns, the

state would have been carried for woman suffrage. It is instructive

to inquire what kind of population occupied the four counties which

defeated it. The following table gives the answer:

========================================================

+-------------+----------+---------+---------+---------+

|Dubuque | 57,450 | 24,024 | 33,426 | 14,566 |

|Clinton | 45,394 | 19,116 | 26,278 | 11,494 |

|Scott | 60,000 | 24,104 | 35,896 | 20,119 |

|Des Moines | 36,145 | 17,769 | 18,376 | 7,828 |

========================================================

The vote on woman suffrage was 162,679 yes and 173,020 no. The "yes

vote" of the above four counties was 8,061; the "no vote" 18,941.

Subtract these totals from the totals of the state vote and 154,618

"yes" and 154,079 "no" remains, giving a majority of 539 for woman

suffrage.

Once more in the history of suffrage referenda a foreign and colonized

population decided the issue. Was the election an honest one? That

is a question of interest to Iowa just now. The returns revealed some

suspicious facts. Nearly 30,000 more votes were cast on the suffrage

proposition than in the primary. Where did they come from? The

president of the W.C.T.U., Mrs. Ida B. Wise Smith, employed a

detective after the election. His investigation covered forty-four

counties and was not confined to those wherein woman suffrage

was lost. The findings have not been given to the public in their

entirety, but they were conclusive enough to cause an injunction suit

to be filed against the Board of Elections and the Legislature to

restrain them from accepting the official returns.

Registration was necessary for the amendment, not for the primary,

yet thousands of unregistered votes apparently were cast upon the

amendment. All good election laws provide that a definite number of

ballots shall be officially issued to each precinct; that the number

of those deposited in the ballot box, the number spoiled and those

unused shall not only tally with the number received, but the

unused ones must be counted, sealed, labelled and returned with the

certificate recording the count. This is the law of Iowa; but the

report of the investigation, as given to the press, shows that in

thirty-five counties out of the forty-four investigated no tally list

was used and there was nothing by which to check in order to determine

the correctness of the number on the certificate. In many cases no

unused ballots were returned. The poll lists did not tally with the

number of votes and even a recount could not reveal whether fraud or

carelessness had led to irregularity.

Despite the fact that the Iowa law provides that a definite number of

ballots and the same number of each kind is to be distributed to each

precinct, the separate suffrage ballots in a number of cases were

reported by election officials as not having arrived until the voting

had been in progress for some time; and in others they gave out an

hour before the polls closed.

Forty-seven varieties of violations of the election law are alleged to

have been committed. Do these indicate wilful fraud or mere ignorance

and carelessness? Just now no one seems prepared to answer. Meantime

Iowa, one of the most intelligent and progressive states in the

nation, stands at the bar of public opinion accused of incapacity

to conduct an honest election. How she will defend herself, what

reparation she will make to her women, and what steps she will take to

insure clean elections and better enforcement of her election law in

the future are problems which await the Legislature. That body cannot

refuse to take action of some kind without inviting the suspicion that

her legislators prefer conditions which lend themselves to the

base uses of election manipulators whenever they may care to avail

themselves of them.

On November 7, 1916, woman suffrage and prohibition amendments were

voted upon in South Dakota. It was the first time these two questions

have gone to referendum in the same election and the results furnish

interesting data for comparison.

Certain facts tell a story which should make progressive, patriotic

Americans and fair-minded Congressmen reflect.

Prohibition was carried by a majority of 11,469; woman suffrage

was lost by a majority of 4,664. Prohibition was lost in thirteen

counties; in one of these, Lawrence, which lies in the heart of the

mining country, prohibition was lost by two votes, and woman suffrage

was carried.

In all the others a large foreign population was the dominant power.

Had nine of the sixty-eight counties of the state not been included in

the returns woman suffrage would have been carried.

The total "yes" vote on woman suffrage was 51,687; the "no" vote

56,351.[A] The total "yes" vote of these nine counties was 4,877; the

"no" vote was 10,569. Subtracting these county totals from the state

totals the record would stand 46,810 "yes" votes and 45,782 "no"

votes.

[Footnote A: The figures here used are those given to the press by the

County Boards of Election. The final returns were not available.]

Who then are the voters of nine counties who kept the women of an

entire state disfranchised? The following table presents the answer:

==================================================================

|-------------+------------+-----------+-------------+-----------|

|Bon Homme....| 11,061 | 3,448 | 7,6l3 | 4,759 |

|Brule .......| 6,451 | 3,008 | 3,443 | 1,556 |

|Charles Mix..| 14,899 | 6,387 | 8,512 | 2,757 |

|Campbell ....| 5,244 | 600 | 4,644 | 3,491 |

|Douglas .....| 6,400 | 2,017 | 4,383 | 1,644 |

|McCook ......| 9,589 | 4,068 | 5,521 | 1,691 |

|Hutchinson ..| 12,319 | 2,671 | 9,648 | 7,515 |

|McPherson ...| 6,791 | 1,152 | 5,639 | 4,889 |

|Turner ......| 13,840 | 4,206 | 9,634 | 4,432 |

|================================================================

The large "no" vote in several counties was due to the same character

of population. The total population is 583,888, the population of

foreign birth or foreign parentage is 243,835. South Dakota is one of

the eight remaining states where foreigners may vote on their "first

papers" and citizenship is not a qualification for a vote.

The returns offer still other food for reflection. Hutchinson county,

for example, carried prohibition and lost woman suffrage. It gave 584

dry votes; 510 wet votes. It gave 432 "yes" votes on woman suffrage

and 1,583 "no" votes. Thus 921 more votes were cast on the suffrage

proposition than on the prohibition question. The people in this

county are German-Russians and exceedingly ignorant. Apparently

they were not intelligent enough to be lined up to vote "no" on both

questions. Is it not likely that these votes were intended to be "wet"

and that they made a mistake and picked No. 6 instead of No. 7? If

not, why not?

The largest group of the foreign population of these counties are

German-Russians. They migrated from Germany and found a home in Russia

some 230 or more years ago, in order to escape conscription. When

Russia began to enforce conscription about 1888 the entire group came

to America and settled in colonies in the Western states which at the

time offered free lands. They were totally illiterate then. They had

not progressed as Germans in their own country had done but being

clannish had remained at the point of development reached at the date

of their migration. They are still clannish and have not yet escaped

from the mental habits of the Middle Ages. These are the men who have

denied American women the vote in South Dakota. That the women of

South Dakota in very large numbers wanted the vote no one questions.

During the campaign six women in Sioux Falls published an appeal to

voters not to support the amendment as they did not wish to vote.

Shortly after an appeal to the voters of the same city was published

and was signed by 3,000 women. In every county of the state the women

manifested their interest by doing all they knew how to do. West

Virginia was the first Southern state to submit a referendum on woman

suffrage and the vote was taken November 7, 1916. The amendment was

defeated by the largest proportional majority any suffrage amendment

ever received. Unlike Iowa and South Dakota, where all the educated

classes with notable exceptions believe in woman suffrage, West

Virginia probably has many conscientious doubters. Arguments and

excuses which did service in the West twenty-five years ago were

brought forward as though just formulated. The illiteracy of the state

is appallingly high and the illiterate is universally an antiwomen

suffragist.

The ever present prohibition issue again played an important if not

a determining part. A prohibition law was voted in by an immense

majority in 1912, but the undismayed "wets" propose to secure a

resubmission if possible. They apparently regarded the woman suffrage

amendment as an outer defense to be taken before the march on the main

prohibition fort could be begun; and every "wet," high and low, was

on duty. The "drys" who would do well to study Napoleon's rule of

strategy, that is, "find out what your enemy doesn't want you to do,

and then do it," were much disturbed as to what St. Paul would think

were he here, and concluded not to be over hasty about giving the

women the vote.

At the Democratic convention an anti woman suffragist spoke. The

applause in the gallery and in the standing groups filling the outside

aisles was uproarious and clearly represented an organized, carefully

planted claque. The leaders were an ex-brewer, an ex-saloonkeeper and

the chief liquor lobbyist of the state. It was evident that they were

there to intimidate the party, and they did. The Democrats threw

a bouquet to the women in the form of a plank and then quietly

repudiated it. Practically the same thing happened in the Republican

convention. They, too, endorsed a plank and "double-crossed." There

was apparently no difference between the two dominant parties on that

score. Men who had always been pronounced suffragists weakly confessed

themselves afraid to speak for woman suffrage in the campaign lest

votes be lost for their party. Political campaigners who went into the

state, with the exception of Senator Borah and Raymond Robins, were

told not to mention suffrage, and they obeyed. The wets apparently had

the state literally by the throat and in order to save votes the great

fundamental principle of "government by the people" was refused a

public hearing. Election Day came. Women poll workers reported from

many parts of the state that drunken hoodlums were marched in line

into the precinct, saying boldly that they were going to vote "agin

the ---- women." The women workers testified with remarkable unanimity

that their opposition was chiefly "riffraff and illiterate negroes and

that it was under the direction of well-known 'wets.'" Even an excise

commissioner under pay of the National Government worked against woman

suffrage all day in one precinct.

A premonition of what might happen appeared in September, when

Judge John M. Woods of the circuit court instructed a grand jury to

investigate the political situation in Berkely county. He declared, as

reported by the press, that election conditions had become intolerable

and that in his judgment one-third of the votes in the county were

purchasable. Elections, he said, had degenerated into "an auction

wherein offices went to the highest bidder."

It was not surprising, therefore, that the cry of fraud arose from

many localities as soon as the election was over, and was so insistent

that the Governor called a special session of the Legislature for the

announced purpose of an investigation into the charges. Colonization,

bribery, repeating and every known form of corruption was alleged to

have been employed. One of the chief newspapers of the state declared

that the election scandals had surpassed all that had gone before.

The Legislature met but the Governor did not proceed with his proposed

investigation. No explanation was given, but to the onlooker it was

clear that one of two reasons, or perhaps both, was the cause of

silence on the part of the chief lawmaking body of the state--either

the lifted curtain would reveal "the pot calling the kettle black," or

so extensive and noxious a mass of corruption was known to exist that

no means were available for correction of the wrongs perpetrated.

That money was used many women were willing to testify. For what

purpose it was used, who furnished it and who were the actual bribers

were questions not so readily answered. In one city it was reported

"that warrants were out after the elect of the city and that this was

true in nearly every ward of the city." The warrants were based upon

the alleged use of money.

Other women poll workers reported that men boldly asked whether they

would be paid, and if so, how much. When they found there was no

reward for suffrage votes they scornfully but frankly confessed that

they could do better on the other side. Irregularities were numerous.

The amendment was ordered by the state officials printed on the main

ticket, but one county so far disobeyed instructions as to print the

amendment on a separate ballot, yet the vote was accepted. The returns

on the amendment were withheld for many days and in several counties

for weeks.

A few straws from the election show the way the wind blew in West

Virginia. In only four counties is the per cent, of illiteracy

among males of voting age less than 6 per cent. The returns in these

counties are found in the following table:

=================================================================

|------------+--------+----------+----------+-------------------|

| 5.5 | Brooke | 1,041 | 907 | Carried |

| 5.8 | Morgan | 443 | 1,098 | 2-1/2 to 1 against|

| 4.7 | Ohio | 4,513 | 6,014 | 1-1/3 to 1 against|

| 5.3 | Wood | 3,260 | 3,960 | 1-1/4 to 1 against|

=================================================================

The returns from the five counties having the highest per cent. of

illiteracy are as follows:

================================================================

|------------+--------+----------+----------+------------------|

| 26.2 |Lincoln | 466 | 3,213 |7 to 1 against |

| 26.4 |Boone | 678 | 1,828 |3 lacking 6 votes |

| 27.7 |Logan | 856 | 2,774 |3-1/4 to 1 against|

| 28.2 |Mingo | 712 | 2,609 |3-2/3 to 1 against|

| 29.7 |McDowell| 1,436 | 4,832 |3-1/3 to 1 against|

================================================================

In the first group the negro vote is under 5 per cent. of the whole.

In the second this is also true of Boone and Lincoln counties. The

number of negro males of voting age is nearly 6 per cent. in Logan

county, 11.2 per cent. in Mingo county and 34.1 per cent. in McDowell

county.

It is a matter of interest to observe that the counties giving the

largest majority against were Clay, 6 to 1; Grant, 7 to 1; Hardy,

7-2/3 to 1; Lincoln, 7 to 1; Raleigh, 5 to 1, and that in none of

these is the negro male population of voting age in excess of 5 per

cent. White illiteracy is high, the lowest in this group being that

found in Grant county, 13.3 per cent.

Had there been an honest election and a fair count in West Virginia,

it is possible, even probable, that woman suffrage would have been

defeated, but the fact remains that no human being can know that,

since the amendment went down to defeat in an election that can only

be described as "The Shame of West Virginia."

In all three states the pending amendments were caught in the toils

of the "wet and dry" issue. The "wets" obsessed by the idea that woman

suffrage is "next door to prohibition" used their entire machinery

to defeat the amendments, while the "drys" regarded the amendments as

distinctly separate questions. These conditions may be regarded as

the inevitable hazards of a campaign. It is, however, not at all clear

that the amendments were defeated in any one of the three states

by the honest "will of the majority." In none of them were women

permitted to serve as watchers over their amendment. In Iowa well

established proof of wilful or careless violations of laws throws

doubt over the returns, while in West Virginia the suspicion of fraud

rests upon the entire election. In Iowa four and in South Dakota nine

counties colonized by people of foreign birth or parentage deprived

the women of the state of their vote.

A Federal amendment ratified by the legislatures of the several states

would secure to the women of South Dakota and Iowa the rights for

which American and Americanized men have voted. The entire western

or most American part of South Dakota has been twice carried for

suffrage, that is, in 1914 and 1916. One county, Harding, adjacent to

Wyoming, has been carried for woman suffrage in the six referenda on

the question, the first one being held in 1890.

The only real argument against the Federal amendment thus far advanced

is that one group of states which want woman suffrage may force it

upon another group which does not want it. That argument works both

ways. _A group of counties_ which want woman suffrage may be deprived

of it for years because another group of un-Americanized, foreign-born

citizens do not want it. The first is said to be the principle of

"American sovereignty," the second may fairly be called the principle

of "foreign sovereignty."