Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 6.djvu/719

 WISCONSIN 703 tions. Dr. Shaw and Mrs. Benedict arranged a mass meeting in New York which netted $2,700. The determined hostility of the liquor interests to woman suffrage was unmistakably shown during the campaign by the official organ of the State Retail Liquor Dealers' Protective Association, called "Progress." For months preceding the elec- tion it was filled with objections, innuendo and abuse in prose, verse and pictures, all designed to impress the reader with the absurdity and danger of giving the vote to women. It appealed to the farmers and to every class of people connected in any way with the manufacture and sale of beer, saying in headlines: "Give the Ballot to Woman and Industry goes to Smash." "It means the Loss of Vast Sums to Manufacturer, Dealer and Yorkingmen," and this was kept up to the end. An unprecedented vote was cast on the woman suffrage proposi- tion at the election November 4, 1912: for, 135,736; against, 227,054; lost by 91,318. Each of the three constitutional amend- ments voted on at the time received barely a fifth of the vote cast on this measure. Of the 71 counties but 14 were carried for suffrage, Douglas county in the extreme northwest on Lake Superior had the best record, a majority of 1,000. Milwaukee county, including the city, gave 20,445 votes for and 40,029 votes against. The referendum was placed on a pink ballot, used only for this purpose, which unquestionably increased the majority against it, as even the most illiterate could stamp it with a "no." The defeat was conceded to have been due to an insuftieiency of general education on woman suffrage and of organixatioii, the foreign population and the widespread belief that it would help largely to bring prohibition. Three days after the election officers of the Political Kquulily league sent to officers of the Stair a-.- .nation a letter proposing a un: he two under a new name and on condition that the president of neither should l>e made president of the new one. The latter was in favor of the union but insisted that the old onsin Suffrage Association, should he re- d. which was done. Miss I.ntie K. Stearns n its presi annual convention to serve until the union was effe< There were ultimatum! and counter-ultimatum* and