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Show Woman Suffrage In Utah ; "If for. no other reason than that it Jias united 'the women of two strong- )y opposed religious sects, suffrage has justified ltsolf in Utah. Mormon and Gentile, the women voters of . Utah httvo pledged themselves to se-cuko se-cuko good government and civic lmr provomonts, and they are working . side hy side to gjin that end, despite most pcofound reliplous dltferenees. It is not going too f.r to a,saert that j the whole world awaits the result I with intense inteerst." The following r i& 'quoted from an article, entitled W "lSiciual Suffrage In the State of Utah," one of a great series on suffrage, appearing ap-pearing in June Pictorial Review: Equal suffrage in the state of Utah may be likened to Galatea. It was created as a boautlful Heal. In reality it was only na image of the real thing. It was not Intended that the Mormon women should have Independent In-dependent ideas as to hov to vote. Equal suffrage, like Galatea, at Its birth was only a fair dummy. In course of time, it came or s coming to life. The ery act of casting a vote made the women of Utah think about that vote. They bean to see the possibilities that lay In heir ballot. bal-lot. If the vote was given to thorn, they asked themselves why shouldn't they use It as they saw fl? Furthermore Further-more equal suffrage In the home meant equal discussion in the home. Also it meant lnevltubly the injection of the feminine view-point into politics. poli-tics. Little by little, step l step. the Mormon women began to assert their independence. In this, perhaps, they were onl keeping pace with the men, rot only of Utah, but of all the world. This independence, this gradual breaking tw.i from authoiit, Is well shown in the election figures of the last dozen ears. In 1900. more than 50 per cent of the ote of Utah went for McKIilev. In 1912, on the other hand, less than 37 per cent of the vote of Utah was cast for the Republican Re-publican party. And the combined vote for Mr. Wilson and Mr. Roosevelt Roose-velt was half as largo again as the vote for Mr. Taft. Slowly but surely the electors of Utah are learning to vote according to their own consciences. con-sciences. What la true of the elecorato at large is true of the feminine part of it. One groat obstacle that for many . years prevented the-political co i operation of the Mormon womon and ' tho Chrlstinn women wa mutual dis trust. Each side feared that an; measure proposed by the other side . was some scheme for partisan advantage. advan-tage. But slowly, as a rook Is worn by the constant dripping o0 water, that feeling is being obliterated. For this happy consummation, oq.ual suffrage and the women's clubs- are roaponalble. There are forty of those clubs in tho sUite federation. The membership is made up of both Mormons and non-Mormons. non-Mormons. Organized at first to road gowning or dnbblo In art, these associations as-sociations have now evolved to the point whore the discussion of Browning Brown-ing has been replaced by tho consideration consid-eration of such topics as the social evil, the effect of Impure milk on babies and the economic harm of occupational oc-cupational diseases. When any one, man or woman, falls to discussing such questions, there can bo but ono result. And so, little by little, tho women of the state of Utah are coming com-ing together to work for civic betterment. bet-terment. Although tho women elected to tho legislature woro elected on a partisan ticket, they will havo tho united backing back-ing of tho 50,000 women votors; for In tho federation of clubs, tho womon possess a means of unity that men in different. partlos do not possess. When it comes to moasuros affecting tho public good -the women know no party lines. To reach this condition of unity has taken them a decade and a half. Fifteen Fif-teen years may- seem a long tlmo to have waited for equal suffrage to justify jus-tify itself. In reality, it was a remarkably re-markably short period. Before women could learn to act together, they had first to learn to overcome thoir prejudices, to forget their religious differences, to learn to judge by a broader standard. Charity and breadth of view aro not easy to acquire. ac-quire. Particularly aro thoy (difficult (diffi-cult of acquirement by womon, who in a sense lead cloistered lives. Nothing Noth-ing but a desire to effect a common end, and that end something so lofty as to appenl to the best in their womanhood, could ever hae brought the women of Utah Into the position they now occupy. If their unity be still not absolute, at least hatred has given way to kindly consideration, and rt llsrlous differences hae been put aside for the consummation of a great end That end Is the welfare of Utah. Month by month the women of that state are being drawn closer together by their common desire for soil.il service. To them as to the women of other states has come home tho lesson that If they want their homos, their cities and their states to be clean and decent, and their children chil-dren to be kept from evil, they themselves them-selves must boar a hand in sailing the ship of stat. They have found but one way effectually to assist by getting the vote and using it. Utah is a bettor state and will become be-come a better stato still becauao the womon of Utah havo tho ballot. In the way of legislation, It Is true that thoy havo as yot accomplished little. But they havo boon getting ready to do ureat things. "To him who is destined to arrivo," says Kenneth Grahame, "th Fates never fall to afford, on tholr way, their small encouragements." en-couragements." At the outbet, wo said that the law secured by tho woman woro not a triumph for equal suffrage. Thoy ware, however, tho small encouragements vouchsafed by tho Fates to those who are destined to arrive. "To travel hopefully' says Stevenson, "is bettor than to arrivo, and the true success Is In labor." Certainly the women of Utah aro traveling hopefully. Already they havo reached tho true suqcoss of labor." |
