Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 4.djvu/299

 could read the report of the late election in Colorado without blushing. I went through the election itself without blushing, except with gratification.


 * Instead of degrading a woman it makes her feel nobler not to be counted with idiots, lunatics and criminals. It even changes the expression of her face.


 * How many women are there in the Colorado Legislature?


 * Three.


 * It has always been thought perfectly womanly to be a scrub-woman in the Legislature and to take care of the spittoons; that is entirely within the charmed circle of woman's sphere; but for women to occupy any of those official seats would be degrading.


 * What salaries do the women legislators receive?:


 * The same as the men, $4 a day. The pay of our legislators is small. A prosperous business man has to make a great sacrifice to go to the Legislature, and we can not always get the best men to serve. This is an additional reason for making women eligible. There are more first-class women than first-class men who have the leisure.


 * We are accused of wishing to belittle men, but in Colorado they think a man's time is worth only as much as a woman's.


 * The Hon. Mrs. Holley has just introduced in the Colorado House, and carried through it against strong opposition, a bill raising the age of protection for girls to eighteen years.


 * I was in the Colorado House and saw it done. The women members are highly respected. I have never seen women so honored since those of Washington were disfranchised. The leading men are as proud of the enfranchisement of their women as Georgia men will be when the time comes. The Colorado women have organized a Good Government League to promote education, sanitation and general prosperity.


 * A bookseller in Denver told me that since women were given the suffrage he had sold more books on political economy than he had sold since Colorado was admitted into the Union.


 * The bill raising the age of protection for girls shows that suffrage does not make a woman forget her children, and the bookseller's remark shows that she will study the science of government.


 * One of our most conservative Maryland women, who married in Colorado ten years ago, writes to me: "I enjoyed every moment of the campaign, especially the primary meetings." A Virginia woman who also married a Colorado man writes back: "Come West, where women are appreciated, and where they are proud and happy citizens." She adds: