Presidential Suffrage.— The Presidential election of 1916 aroused nation-wide interest in the question of votes for women, as it was generally accepted that it had been decided by the equal-suffrage States. The injustice was widely recognized of permitting the women of one section of the country to help choose the President of the United States and denying this privilege to those of other sections. so the Na tional Association decided that the time was ripe for pushing its long-cherished plan to ob tain so-called Presidential suffrage for women. The Federal Constitution empowers every legis lature to determine the manner in which the Presidential electors of the State shall be chosen and it is the universal custom to have this done by popular vote. In many States when the legis latures assembled in January 1917 they found themselves confronted by a request from the women that a law should be enacted giving them the right to vote for these Presidential electors, which could be done by a simple ma jority of the legislatures. They had granted this in Illinois in 1913; the women had voted at the election of 1916 and their votes had been ac cepted in the Electoral College without question.
By April this Presidential vote had been con ferred by the legislatures of North Dakota. Ne braska, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan and Rhode Island. The first three added municipal and county suffrage as Illinois had done. The Ver mont legislature in March passed a bill giving only municipal suffrage to women. Tennessee included it with Presidential suffrage in 1919 The Supreme Court of Indiana declared that the legislature could not constitutionally grant the municipal and county franchise and as the Presidential was included in the law it also was ruled out. Ohio by means of an initia tive petition, which was clearly unconstitutional, submitted the law to the voters and they de feated it. The same attempt was made in Ne braska, but the court found the petitions so fraudulent that it refused to permit a referen dum and declared the law to be in effect. Michi gan nullified it by giving full suffrage. In the winter of 1919 the legislature of Indiana re enacted the law for Presidential suffrage and it was granted during the winter and spring by the legislatures of Vermont, Wisconsin, Maine. Minnesota, Missouri, Tennessee, Iowa and in July again by Ohio.
The women of 30 States, two less than two thirds, now have dn, right to vote for 330 of the 531 Presidential electors. Sixty senators and 154 reprecentatises are elected partly by soles of women. The number of women 21 years of age in the States where they have Presidential only is estimated at 13,000.0013 There are approximately 7,500,000 women of voting age in the 15 equal-suffrage States. The total
number of women of this age in the entire United States is about 27,(100.000.
All the suffrage now possessed by the women f the United States has been gained through the efforts of the National American Associa tion and its State branches, by strictly non partisan, constitutional methods.
Not in any State has the legislature power to confer the full suffrage on women, but this must be done by amenditir State constitutions.
which requires submission to the voters. The legislatures can grant the above-mentioned fran chises and also a fragmentary vote, varying in different States, on school matters, issuing of bonds, special taxation, etc., which has been done by over half of them.
Although the National American Associa tion has done so large a work in obtaining woman suffrage in the States it has regarded this as but preliminary to securing a Federal amendment, as a means for bringing pressure on Congress. From 1869 it paused only long enough to have a thorough test made of women's right to vote under the 14th Amendment. In 1571-72 women tried to vote in various parts of the country, Susan B. Anthony among them. She was arrested, tried and fined. Mrs. Vir ginia L. Minor, of Saint Louis, was refused registration and carried her case to the United States Supreme Court (Minor v. Happersett).'° An adverse decision was rendered in 1875 and the association then returned to its original object. Hearings before committees of Senate and House were held from 1869. Senator A. A. Sargent, of California, presented in 1878 the amendment which thereafter was introduced into every Congress: 'The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.' The appeals and arguments of the women were treated by the committees in a purely academic spirit and it was difficult ti, get any kind of a report. From 1878 to 1896 there were six favorable majority reports from Senate committees and two from House com mittees and four adverse. Thereafter none of any kind was made until 1913—after the vic tories in Kansas, Arizona and Oregon.
The movement for woman suffrage at this time entered upon a new era and began to be regarded seriously by politicians. Only once had the amendment been brought to a vote in the Senate-25 Jan. 1887, through the efforts of Senator Henry W. Blair, of New Hampshire — and the vote resulted in 16 ayes, all Republi cans; 34 noes, 11 Republicans and 23 Democrats, with 26 absent. The second vote was taken 19 March 1914; ayes, 35; noes, 34, lacking 11 of the necessary two-thirds majority. One Progres sive, 14 Democrats and 20 Republicans voted air ; 22 Democrats and 12 Republicans voted no.