Woman Suffrage in Idaho
By WILLIAM BALDERSTON.
Editor of Boise Daily Statesman
WE WANTED IT; we went after it, and we got it. After we got it we liked it, and we find ourselves liking it better after an experience with it reaching over four campaigns.
That is the story of equal suffrage in Idaho.
The ballot was placed in the hands of the better half of the population of this state at the election held in 1896, and the results of the change have fully justified those through whose efforts the reform was brought about.
A brief review of the subject may, however, be of interest to the reader, and for the purpose of such a review we shall turn back a few years and recall the circumstances under which the change occurred.
The first political step toward the enfranchisement of women was taken in 1894, when the state republican convention adopted a resolution pledging the party to submit the question to a vote of the people. This was brought about through the activity of an equal suffrage association that had been maintained for two years, and was aided by national suffragists, including Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, Mrs. Ida M. Johns and Mrs. Abigail Scott Duniway.
True to its pledge, the party, at the ensuing session of the legislature, submitted an amendment to the state constitution giving women the right of suffrage. The equal suffrage association then went to work with great vigor to carry the amendment through, and its efforts were crowned with success at the election in 1896. On election day there were workers at the polls who called the attention of voters to the amendment at the last moment, and all were rejoiced when the returns were received to find the reform had been carried by a safe majority. One obstacle remained, however, a question being raised whether less than a majority of all the votes was sufficient to carry an amendment. This question was carried into the Supreme Court, where it was decided that it was necessary only to have a majority of all those voting on the amendment.
The change went into effect as smoothly as though the women had always been accustomed to voting. There was, though, a remarkable improvement in the conduct of elections. A better tone was observed at once. The presence of women at the polls had an effect similar to their presence at any other place—rowdyism disappearing and giving place to a quiet, genteel polling-place atmosphere comparable to that observed in a dry goods store, or any other place where the sex gathers.
Some women have become officeholders, but there is no disposition among them to crowd into politics in that manner. In nearly all instances women are selected as superintendents of schools in state and county: some have been elected as county treasurers, and we have one female county clerk.
