Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 4.djvu/525

 Women who have "all the rights they want," and men who insist that "the laws are framed for the best interests of women," are recommended to make a study of those presented herewith.

Under the head of Suffrage it is stated whether women possess any form of it and, if so, in what it consists. The story of the four States where they have the complete franchise—Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and Idaho—naturally is most interesting, as it describes just how this was obtained and gives considerable information on points which are not fully understood by the general public. The chapter on Kansas doubtless will come next in interest, as there women have had the Municipal ballot since 1887. It is frequently said in criticism that women have School Suffrage in twenty-six States and Territories, including the five mentioned above, but they do not make use of it in large numbers. What this fragmentary suffrage includes, the restrictions thrown around it and the obstacles placed in its way, are described in the chapters of those States and Territories where it prevails—Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Michigan, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin.

It will be seen that in New York women tax-payers in villages, and in Louisiana and Montana all tax-paying women, may vote on questions submitted for taxation, and an account is given of the first use which women made of this privilege in Louisiana in 1899. In Iowa all women may vote on the issuing of bonds. In Mississippi they have the merest form of a franchise on a few matters connected with country schools and the running at large of stock. In Arkansas they may sign a petition against liquor selling within certain limits and their names count for as much as men's. After a careful study of the situation the wonder will not be that women do not exercise more largely these grudgingly given and closely-restricted privileges, but that in many States they think it worth while to exercise them at all. In the four, however, where they have the Full Suffrage, and in Kansas where they have the Municipal, the official figures which have been carefully tabulated will demonstrate beyond further controversy that where they possess exactly the same electoral rights as