Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 3.djvu/818

Rh most, if not all, of its former enemies have become its friends and advocates. Most of the new settlers in the territory, though coming here with impressions or prejudices against it, soon learn to respect its operation, and admire its beneficial results. There is nowhere in the territory a voice raised against it, and it would be impossible to get up a party for its repeal.

The women uniformly vote at all our elections, and are exerting every year a more potent influence over the character of the candidates selected by each party for office, by quietly defeating those most objectionable in point of morals. It is true they are not now summoned to serve on juries, nor are they elected to office; and there are some obvious reasons for this. In the first place, they never push themselves forward for such positions, as the men invariably do; and in the second place, the judges who have been sent to the territory, since the first ones, have not insisted on respecting the women's rights as jurors, and in some cases have objected to their being summoned as such. But these matters will find a remedy by and by. It used to be an important question in the nominating caucuses, "Will this candidate put up money enough to buy the saloons, and catch the loafers and drinkers that they control?" Now the question is, "Will the women vote for this man, if we nominate him?" There have been some very remarkable instances where men, knowing themselves to be justly obnoxious to the women, have forced a nomination in caucus, relying on their money and the drinking shops and party strength to secure an election, who have been taught most valuable lessons by signal defeat at the polls. It would be invidious to call names or describe individual cases, and could answer no necessary purpose. But I would ask particular attention to the following articles, taken from recent newspapers, as full and satisfactory evidence of the truth of these statements, and of the wisdom of granting universal suffrage and equal rights to the citizens of Wyoming territory.

The Laramie City Daily Sentinel of December 16, 1878, J. H. Hayford, editor, has the following leading editorial:

For about eight years now, the women of Wyoming territory have enjoyed the same political rights and privileges as the men, and all the novelties of this new departure, all the shock it carried to the sensibilities of the old conservatives, have long since passed away. For a long time—even for years past—we have frequently received letters asking for information as to its practical results here, and still more frequently have received copies of eastern papers with marked articles which purported to be written by persons who resided here, or had visited the territory and witnessed the awful results or the total failure of the experiment. We have usually paid no attention to these false and anonymous scribblers, who took this method to display their shallow wit at the sacrifice of truth and decency. But recently we have received more than the usual number of such missives, and more letters, and from a more respectable source than before, and we take this occasion and method to answer them all at once, and once for always, and do it through the columns of the Sentinel, one of the oldest and most widely circulated papers in the territory, because it will be readily conceded that we would not publish here at home, false statements and misrepresentations upon a matter with which all our readers are familiar, and which, if false, could be easily refuted.

We assert here, then, that woman suffrage in Wyoming has been in every particular a complete success.