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of the House in 1879. He said "I came to the Territory in 1871, strongly prejudiced against woman suffrage. It has produced much good, and no evil that I could discern. In my opinion the real health-giving remedy that would counteract political degeneracy would be the ballot in the hands of women in every State and Territory."
After twenty years experience of woman suffrage as a statute law, during which it might at any session of the legislature have been repeated if not satisfactory, it was embodied in the new state constitution and voted for by both men and women and was thus enshrined in the organic laws of the state rendering the rights of women forever secure. It will be of especial interest to note that that twenty years of woman suffrage had not killed out chivalry as is predicted but rather excelled it to such a height of justice that when the admission of Wyoming as a State was being opposed by many Members of Congress because of the woman suffrage clause, and the women offered to allow their temporary disfranchisement to secure the State's admission, the reply from the fathers, brothers and sons was, "No, we will wait a generation, if need be. We will not go in as a State without our women."
The most remarkable corroboration of the unanimous and continued official testimony to the good effects of woman suffrage was furnished by the State Representatives in the following resolution
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Be it resolved by the Second Legislature of the State of Wyoming: That the possession and exercise of suffrage by the women in Wyoming for the past quarter of a century has wrought no harm and has done great good in many ways; that it has largely aided in banishing crime, pauperism and vice from the State, and that without any violent or oppressive legislation; that is has secured peaceful and orderly elections, good government, and a remarkable degree of civilization and public order; and we point with pride to the facts that after nearly twenty-five years of woman suffrage not one county in Wyoming has a poor house, that our jails are almost empty, and crime, except that committed by strangers in the State, almost unknown; and as the result of experience we urge every civilizied community on earth to enfranchise its women without delay.
Resolved, That an authenticated copy of these resolutions be forwarded by the Governor of the State to the Legislature of every State and Territory in this country, and to every legislative body in the world; and that we request the press throughout the civilized world to call the attention of their readers to these resolutions. Although the verdict of the people of the Commonwealth, thus variously expressed, furnishes the best possible evidence of the value of woman suffrage, it is interesting to note how it is supported by figures, wherever it is possible to schedule conditions. The following facts are gathered from a careful analysis of the census reports, comparing Wyoming in general with the whole United States, and in particualr with the eleven States which form the Western group. Since the only feature of Wyoming that it did not share with others of these State s was the exceptional experience of woman suffrage, it is fair to conclude that any marked difference in its status is due to this face.
The population of the United States has increased in the last decade 24.6 per cent. That of Wyoming has increased 127.9 percent. But while the number of criminals in the whole United States has increased 40.3 per cent., an alarming ratio - far beyond the increase in population - notwithstanding the immense increase of population in Wyoming, the number of criminals has not increased at all, giving a relative decrease which shows a law-abiding community, and constantly improving condition of the public morals. In 1880, there were confined in the jails and prisons of Wyoming 74 criminals, 72 men and 2 women. The census of 1890 shows the same number of criminals, 74 but the 74 in 1890 are all men, and thus the scarecrow of the vicious women in politics disappears. Wyoming being the only State in which the per cent of criminal women has decreased, it is evident that the morals of the female part of the population improve with the exercise of the right of suffrage.
How to prevent divorce, and maintain the sacred institution of the home, is the problem of to-day and the experience of Wyoming again gives us light & hope. In the United States, the estimated number of married couples to one divorce was 664 in 1870, and 481 in 1880, the number of divorced marriages in the United State increasing 38 per cent. In the Western group, the States, (omitting Wyoming), which are beyond or partly beyond the Rocky Mountains, the average increase was 50 per cent.
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to state the matter in terms that all can remember, the ratio of divorced in Wyoming is to that of the whole United States a 1 is to 3; to that of the other states in the Western group as 1 is to 4.
It thus is proven that woman suffrage conduces to good order in elections, to purity in politics, to the good morals of the community, to the happiness of the home, to the better protection of women by the laws, and that it inspires men to a higher standard of thought and action. May these facts I have given you from actual experience of the working of woman suffrage in this country allay your fears, remove all doubt and hesitation, and give you courage and strength to follow the beacon light of liberty wherever it may lead.
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REMARKS OF MRS. CLARA BEWICK COLBY.
Mrs, Lockwood's work for Woman Suffrage has been the warp in the fabric of her life. It meantto her woman's freedom to be and to do all that the inner voice impelled. Her natural gifts and ambitions led her to do her work well for the work's sake but there was always the added motive of doing it well for woman's sake that it might be easier for those who were to follow.
In 1867 Mrs. Lockwood helped to form the Universal Franchise Association of the District of Columbia and was its vice-president. The meetings held in Union League Hall were very largely attended, perhaps because the newspape ridiculed ridiculed them and threatened to write up every woman who went there. The ten cent admission put nearly $1000. in the terasury [treasury] with which Mrs. Lockwood engaged Lincoln Hall for the following season, and the most distinguished lecturers that could be procured, including Mrs. Stanton and Anna Dickinson.
In the days when men voted in the District Mrs. Lockwood with others, 80 in all, tried to register and vote. Failing in this Mrs. Lockwood had bills introduced in the Territorial Legislature and appeared before both houses with arguments and largely signed petitions, asking for the franchise for the women of the District. As this was request was refused we can but feel that justice was vindicated by the loss of Territorial rights in 1875,
The National Association began its annual Washington conventions in the late sixties. Whwn [when] there were few to help the preliminary arrangements for the earlier conventions were made by Mrs. Lockwood, who was as willing to put up posters in the street cars with her own hands as she was to write the petitions and memorials and to speak at Congressional Hearings. Much# of this is told in the "History of Woman Suffrage", and Mrs. Stanton's letter to a newspaper is quoted there in which she describes Mrs. Lockwood's appearance as she made her speech after she had been denied admission tothe Supreme Court because there was no precedent to admit a woman. Mrs. Stanton said:- "On this point Mrs. LOckwood shows that it was the glory of each generation to make its own precedents. As there was none for Eve in the Garden of Eden, she argued there need be none for her daughters on entring [entering] the college, the church, or the courts. Blackstone, -of whose works she inferred the judges were ignorant-, gives several precedents ##### of women in the English courts. As Mrs. LOckwood-tall, well-proportioned, with dark hair and eyes, regular features, in dark velvet dress and train,- with becoming indignation at such injustice, marched up and down the platform and rounded out her glowing periods, she might have fairly represented the Italian Portia at the bar of Venice.
The partiality of the Washington press for Mrs, Lockwood may perhaps be accounted for by an incident chatasteristic [characteristic] of the way she meets a situation. The same ridicule which had been poured upon the early suffragist was inflicted on the daring innovator and disturber of municipal serenity who was the first woman to ride a #### tricycle. An offensive article particularly alluded to big feet- a point on which the ordinary woman is extremely sensitive. Mrs. Lockwood, with something in a mysterious parcel, entered the newspaper office, and demanded to see the writer of that article. Glancing at each other they all said he was out, and his return was uncertain. She then wanted to know which was his desk. An unoccupied one in a remote corner was pointed out. Mrs. LOckwood advanced to it and placed there the packagea bouquet of choice flowers with her card on which was written, "You're a daisy".
In 1870 Mrs, Lockwood drew up a bill, secured thousand of signatues [signatures] to a petition for its passage, and lobbied it through Congress as a bill to prevent discrimination on account of sex by the Government in its employment of women So that every woman in a department or a post-office owes her equality of wages to the efforts of Mrs. Lockwood.
