practical result, so far, of voting for school committees has justified this position; for, as shown by the recent elections, the women of the State have not availed themselves to any extent of their new right to vote, and, therefore, the measure has not forwarded the cause of general suffrage. In fact, the school-committee question is not a vital one with either male or female voters, and it is impossible to get up any enthusiasm on the subject. As a test question upon which to try the desire of the women of the State to become voters, it is a palpable sham. Our Revolutionary fathers would not have fought, bled and died for such a figment of a right as this; and their daughters, or grand-daughters, inherit the same spirit, and if they vote at all, want something worth voting for. The result is, that the voting has been largely done by those women who have long been in favor of suffrage, and who have gone to the polls on election day from pure principle and a sense of duty.[1]
The law allowing women to vote for school committees was very elastic and capable of many interpretations. It reminded one of the old school exercise in transposing the famous line in Gray's Elegy,
"The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,"
which has been found to be capable of over twenty different transpositions. The collectors and registrars in some towns and cities took advantage of this obscurity of expression, and interpreted the law according to their individual opinion on the woman suffrage question. In places where these officials were in sympathy, a broad construction was put upon the provisions of the law, the poll-tax payers were allowed to vote upon the payment of one dollar (under the divided tax law of 1879), and the women voters generally were given all necessary information, and treated courteously both by the assessors and registrars and at the polls. In places where leading officials were opposed to women's voting, the case was far different. Without regarding the clause in the law which said that a woman may vote upon paying either State or county poll-tax, such officials have threatened the women with arrest when they refused to pay both. In some towns they have been treated with great indignity, as if they were doing an unlawful act. In one town the women were actually required to pay a poll-tax the second year, in spite of the clause in the law
- ↑ At the first annual election for school committees in cities and towns in 1879-80, about 5,000 women became registered voters.
