Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 6.djvu/573

This page needs to be proofread.
HISTORY OF WOMAN SUFFRAGE.

PENNSYLVANIA 557 gave assistance. The suffrage organizations were urged to place women workers at every polling precinct. Many men favorable to suffrage advised against this plan but the result of the election showed that nothing won as many votes at the last minute as the appeal of the women at the polls. Of the 33 counties which were carried 21 had women working at the polls; of the 36 which lost only six had women there. Of the 33 counties 17 had head- quarters. Eight of the 33 counties which gave a majority are chiefly industrial ; eight are equally industrial and rural and seventeen are chiefly rural. Luzerne, Lackawanna and Westmoreland are the third, fourth and fifth counties in point of population and they won by majorities of 3,139, 2,654 and 1,140. In all of them the labor vote is heavy, as mining is the chief industry. Allegheny was the first county of its size to be carried in the history of suffrage. Fayette county, the home of Republican State Chair- man Crow, who never wavered in his opposition, was carried by 1,400. Every ward in Uniontown, the county seat and his home, gave a majority for the amendment. Mrs. Robert E. Umbel was county chairman. The eight Dutch counties lost by majorities ranging from 2,000 to 7,000. Rockbound conservatism had much to do with this result. Schuylkill county, where an adverse vote from 10,000 to 15,000 was predicted, lost by only 1,000. Miss Helen Beddall, the chairman, conducted a persistent campaign of education for two years. Philadelphia had the most difficult problem to face with its large vote and political corruption. Its difficulties were increased by the duplication of suffrage organizations working independ- ently. An added complication was the prejudice created by the efforts of the "militant" suffrage organization, then called the Congressional Union, to organize, this being the only center in the State in which they had secured a foothold. The large women's clubs of Philadelphia took no part in the constructive work of the campaign. Wilmer Atkinson of this city, editor and owner of the Farm Journal, was president of the Men's League for Woman rage and gave unstintingly of his strength and means to

re victory. The vote in Philadelphia was 122,519 noes,

77,240 ayes; adverse majority, 45,279. The total vote was