Socialists have been counted on the suffragist side. Those who have declared themselves as against woman suffrage, or as members of anti-suffrage organizations, or who propose to confine the franchise to school or municipal questions, or to taxpaying women, have been counted in the opposition to suffrage. On the other hand, those who believe in restricted suffrage for men and women alike have been counted in favor. In other words, the record, as made up, is of those for or against equal suffrage, eliminating sex as a discriminating qualification.
The editor has compiled these figures from the printed record, even ignoring his personal knowledge, in those cases where no record has been printed, of the views of several of those who have been left out of the calculation. Those counted for woman suffrage aggregate 4787; those opposed, 773; those who have neglected to record themselves, including a very few who have gone on record as neutral, number 4084. The latter number is not made up of women entirely indifferent to the question. Some are, but among the others are some who would give little information on any subject not professional, and some others who gave no data for this book, whose sketches have been written from personal memoranda which the editor has been privately collecting for the past four years for another purpose.
As to the bearing of the figures disclosed by this analysis, it is not intended to comment here, but perhaps it is pertinent to state that not more than a hundred names, all told, of those used in the book, have been included solely for their prominence as exponents of either side of the suffrage question.
