the conventions of our various political parties and in elections has a tendency to relegate the professional politicians, at least the worst element, and bring forth in their stead a better class of people. This tendency is of vast importance to the State. It compels leaders of political parties to be more careful in the selection of candidates for different offices of trust and profit.
The Chief Justice and all the Judges of the Supreme Court have published a statement saying in part: "Woman suffrage in this State is a success; none of the evils predicted have come to pass, and it has gained much in popularity since its adoption by our people."
Utah.
The lawmakers seem to be afraid of enfranchising women because of the deteriorating effect which politics might have on womankind. If this be true let the experience of Utah speak. For six years women in this State have had the right to vote and hold office. Have the wheels of progress stopped? Instead we have bounded forward with seven-league boots. Have the fears and predictions of the local opponents of woman suffrage been verified? Have women degenerated into low politicians, neglecting their homes and stifling the noblest emotions of womanhood? On the contrary women are respected quite as much as they were before Statehood; loved as rapturously as ever, and are led to the altar with the same beatific strains of music and the same unspeakable joy that invested ceremonials before their enfranchisement.
The plain facts are that in this State the influence of woman in politics has been distinctly elevating. In the primary, in the convention and at the polls her very presence inspires respect for law and order. Few men are so base that they will not be gentlemen in the presence of ladies. Experience has shown that women have voted their intelligent convictions. They understand the questions at issue and they vote conscientiously and fearlessly. While we do not claim to have the purest politics in the world in Utah, it will be readily conceded that the woman-vote is a terror to evildoers, and our course is, therefore, upward and onward.
One of the bugaboos of the opposition was that women would be compelled to sit on juries. Not a single instance of the kind has happened in the State, for the reason that women are never summoned; the law simply exempts them, but does not exclude them. Another favorite idiocy of the anti-suffragists is that if the women vote they ought to be compelled to fight. In the same manner the law exempts them from military service.
For one I am proud of Utah's record in dealing with her female citizens. I take the same pride in it that a good husband would who had treated his wife well, and I look forward with eager hope to the day when woman suffrage shall become universal.
