News Articles

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The result in Washington was brought about by a ballot title which
did not advise the voters of the State of the purport and effect of the
measure on which they were voting. Woman suffrage went on the
official ballot in Washington in November, 1910, under the following
title:
    “For the proposed amendment of Article VI of the Constitution
relating to qualifications of voters within this State.”

    There was a similar attempt to mislead the voters of Oregon by a
false ballot title, but the attempt was exposed in the official pamphlet
and by the press of the State, with the result that the amendment was
defeated by the above quoted vote.
    In California the amendment providing for woman suffrage was
voted on at a special election held on the 10th of October, 1911. The
measure carried by the meagre plurality of 3587. The entire vote cast
on this question at that election was only 246,487. This was only 63%
of the vote cast in November, 1910, when a governor of California was
elected. The woman suffrage amendment received 28,798 votes less than
the Democratic candidate for governor received at that election and yet
the Democratic candidate for governor was defeated by a plurality of
22,356. There is always an active and zealous minority in favor of
woman suffrage and this minority can be trusted to get out and vote.
The majority of the electors opposed to woman suffrage are less zealous
on the subject and less certain to register their votes. We are confident
that on a full vote the measure would have been beaten in California
as it has been so often beaten in Oregon.

DEMOCRACY NOT A FAILURE.

    There is a suggestion in the argument presented by the advocates of
this amendment that in the absence of woman suffrage democracy is
a failure. No American woman with a proper pride in the history of
her country would advance this contention. American democracy, with
its century and a quarter of constitutional government, with its Wash-
ington and its Lincoln, with its security for personal rights, and its
expansion of national power, is the most glorious success of the ages.
Woman has had her part in all this, she has had her work to perform,
and her burdens to bear. She has done her part in the home and not
on the hustings, and her power for good is the greater because she has
been content to be a woman and has not striven to be an imitation man.

    IDA M. TARBELL ON WOMAN SUFFRAGE.

    Few women of our day have accomplished more than Miss Ida M.
Tarbell. In an article in a recent magazine Miss Tarbell says:
  “Human society may be likened to two great circles, one revolving
within the other. In the inner rules the woman. Here she breeds and
trains the material for the outer circle which exists only by and for her.