Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 6.djvu/731

 IN THE TERRITORIES AND PHILIPPINES 715 The women of Alaska did their share in all kinds of war work, for conservation, bond drives, Red Cross and kindred activities. On account of the vast distances and small means of transporta- tion any general cooperation is impossible. There are two daily papers in Fairbanks with a wide circulation over the entire district, which is larger than Texas. The organizing for Red Cross work had to be largely done through these papers but in % few months there were about 600 knitters, practically all the women in the district, and thirty organizations in the mining camps, many of these having only two or three women. In Fair- banks, by means of dances, card parties, sales, etc., $8,000 were raised just to buy wool, besides all the funds and "drives." The interest of Alaskan women in such public questions as affect women elsewhere is that of the spectator rather than of the worker. When legislation on housing and tenement laws, pro- tection of factory workers, prevention of child labor and like problems becomes necessary they will not be lacking in interest or energy. HAWAII. The Organic Act under which the Territories of the United States were created said that at the first election persons with specified qualifications should be entitled to vote and at subsequent elections such persons as the Territorial Legislature might desig- nate. It was under this Act that Wyoming and Utah enfranchised their women in 1869 and 1870 and Washington in 1883. When in 1899 tne Congress was preparing to admit Hawaii as a Territory the commission framed a constitution which specific- ally refused the privilege that had been granted to every other Territory of having its own Legislature decide who should vote after the first election, by inserting a clause that it "should not grant to ... any individual any special privilege or franchise without the approval of Congress." This constitution gave the suffrage to every masculine citizen of whatever nationality- Portuguese, Japanese, Chinese who could read and write Eng- lish or Hawaiian, and it repeatedly used the word "male" to bar women from having a vote or holding an office. The nu-inlu-: this commission were Senators John T. Morgan of Alabama and Shelby M. Cullom of Illinois; I dive I 1>ert l. llitt of