t, 
ArizonamM' as I 


 

The Arizona camraign suffrage is probably the
most unique in history. The fight for Equal Suffrage began
here fifteen years ago and eight years ago success seemed within
our grasp when we had a suffrage bill pass both houses of the
legislature by a two thirds vote. But the bill was vetoed
by a Governor who was controlled by machine politiCians. Since
that time it has been apparent that we could never succeed I

with a suffrage measure until it came to a vote of the people.

Hhen the Enabling Act was passed two years ago last June,
there arose a murmur that soon swelled into one insistent demand
that the new constitution be builded strictly along progressive
lines. Hon. Henry F. was present senator from Arizona,
sounded the key note of the cam aign when in his fourth
of July speech he advocated the iniative and Referendum and
other pr grossive measures. Senator Ashurst is a democrat
but the democratic party was at that time in the hands of the
reactionaries and they scared?hr. Ashurst must severely for
what tley termed his untimely speech. A week or two later
a conventibn of the working men was called and met in Phoenix
I attended that convention, and heard it declared most emphatically
that neither the democratic nor republican parties fulfilled
the demands of the working class, hence a new party The labor
Party" was formed, and their platform contained all of the
progressive measures advocated by Senator Ashurst and a good
'many more, an Equal Suffrage plank coming among others. It sonn

became apparent that unless something was done to meet the

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demands of the people, the ?Labor Party" would beof?e the
?dominant party in Arizona and the democratic party quickly
trimmed its sails to catch the breeze of popular sentiment.
Here is where the women let an Opportunity 30 by.- If an
organized effort had been made at that time to have Equal
miffra3e become a cart of the progressive demands we could
have gotten equal suffrage into the Constitution very easily.
But the women were not alive to the fact hence, only a partial
ffort was made, but even the small effort brought forth good
results for when the Constitutional Convention met the
following fall, a considerable number of its members plelged to
?isuffrage. We labored long and-well with that Convention, but it
was useless, for we soon found that altho gh the majority was
labelled "frogressive" that only a few were the genuine article,
and that only a thin veneer, just enough to deceive the.p60ple, 
covered the greater number,zand so we failed on the ground
that it would be dangerous and radical to put Equal Suifrage

hinto the Constitution and would insure its veto Dy Iresident

 
 

at

zraft and this with a constitution thus already had the
initative and referendum and the Recall of Judges written
vetoed it in defiance of President?Taft's'expressed Wish when
he toured the state a few months before. '50 we went bac

home and told our tale of woe, but the people would not believe
us when we,then that a great many of those scucalled
progressive men were a very bad imitation and as soon as the
Constitution ha( 1 been formally adopted and statehood declared

they sent every one of these men who wanted to come back as

  
 

members of the first state legislature, except the eleven rejfe??;

yublicghs who had honestly deCIar?d themselves reactionaries

 

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and in favor of a "Safe and sane, constitution". They were
every one retired in disgrace. As soon as the first state election
was held, we commenced bombarding the governor with petitions
and letters asking him to recommend suffrage in his message
to the legislature. This he did and the second bill
introduced when that legislature met was one asking that our
amendment to the constitution be the voters giving
all citizens of certain qualifications the right to Vote and
providing that the word citizen should include persons of the male
and female sex. This bill or a similar one was passed by a
good majority in the lower house but failed by one vote in
the Senate which was presided overgand dominated by our 

archaenemy of the Constitutional Convention. The final vote

came last April and we then had but little more than two

months in Which to obtain names enough Ehraeur- initative
petition. Here the Socialists cam to our aid and without

them we should have failed, but as it was we succeeded in

obtaining lf4 more names than needed, and filed our petition

the 5th of July_last. We had at that time a state central
committee with members from every county. We'began through
them to raise the necessary campaign funds. The Eaticnai
through hiss 3haw came fbrward with apledge of enough money to
commence the work and financed; almOet half the entire fund.
Cur campaign was not an expensive one as we had only one
paid speaker Mrs. Laura Gregg Gannon. Miss Shaw gave us
seven speeches in the entire state and she made hundreds of
votes for us, and her praises were sounded everywhere.


Dozens of influenzial people in every-tOWn where she spoke

 

 



told us that they have never thought of suffrage?as anything

but a joke until they heard Kiss Shew. As I review the work

of the campaign I am very well satisfied with it and can say

that few mistakes were made, but there is one thing we could

not have done without and that was Kiss Shaw's seven lectures here.
Hrs. Cannon spoke almost entirely to the labor men, and

the result was most gratifying indeed. The election returns

show that fUlly 90% of the solid labor vote was given for the

suffrage amendment.- Miss Alice Park of Palo Alto, Cal. was here

and lent us her faithful# assistance. Her help 'was invaluable 

and the successful distribution of literature was almost

entirely due to her efforts. hf

he shrewdest thing that was done during the Whole 

campaign was the obtaining of a suffrage plank in both democratic

and republican state platforms. rolitics pure and simple were -

pledged here, and the progressive party was the pfincipal

factor in the game. The state party adopted the national

platform with its suffrage plank in full. When the party

conferences were held for the purpose of formulating the party

platform for the state campaign, we women went before the

democratic and republican conference and heat the reactionaries

who had again gained Controlled of-the machinerV. He had a

battle royal but we won by the simple play of wit which taught

me that man's wit is no match for woman's in point of

keenness. By securing the suffrage planks, we swept the ground

from under the feet of our apponents and not one politician

ahamuJAhl A A

dared raise his voice against us. Hon? H, A. Davis a memhgr?w??s~
as p:

 
  


of the legislature as senator from Kancipa County, gave u?irf



 

several Weeks of his valuah 0 time without salary and SPOTS to

large crouds of people an? made many votes for us. He hope to

send him to the U. S. Senate in two years, fn? ifewe do, equal


suffrage will have a valiant champion.

The entire press of the state was favorable and only one
paper published an unfavorable editorial. 'The?majority
published all of our suffrage matter and gave us numerous
favorable eaitorials.

?e did nothing Spectacular, but devoted our whole
time.to the distribution of literature an? to personal appeal.
We have won honestly and solely on the merits of the euestion.
The complete returns are not in, but we have carried the
state easily by a majority total cost of less

than $2,000. (two thousand sellers}.

?e owe our victory to the generous spirit of Arizona's

noble an? progressive manhoodt

Frances Willard hunds.