DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES PRESENTED BY MR. SUTHERLAND WASHINGTON GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE EQUAL SUFFRAGE IN COLORADO. By Mr. TAYLOR of Colorado. RARY Mr. Chairman, I would not be performing my full duty to the State of Colorado, or to her 135,000 women voters whom I am supremely proud to represent, if I permitted this occasion to pass without expressing their sentiments upon the pending amendment to this bill. This amendment simply grants to the people of Alaska the authority to extend to the women of that Territory the right of equal suffrage. While I would prefer to have a provision in this bill expressly granting the elective franchise to the women and thereby making the grant come directly from Congress itself instead of waiting upon the legislature of Alaska to determine the question, nevertheless, I believe in local self-government, and there is not the slightest doubt in my mind but that the hardy pioneers of the Northwest the splendid American citizens who are reclaiming that wilderness and making it one of the richest portions of the globewill be fair enough and broad minded and chivalrous enough to pass a law at the first session of their legislature granting to the women of that Territory the rights of American citizenship. This amendment will give the Alaskans the opportunity, of which Congress is now failing to take advantage, of directly extending this act of enlightened twentieth-century square dealing to the women who are enduring the hardships and privations incident to pioneer life in that country. I regret exceedingly that I am not the author of this amendment. I intended to and would have been delighted to offer this amendment myself as a greeting to the good women of Alaska; but my attention was diverted for only a moment, and my exceptionally efficient and ever alert friend from Wyoming [Mr. Mondell] got ahead of me. However, I am proud of the fact that this amendment is presented by the Representative of the original equal-suffrage State, and I congratulate this House and the people of Alaska upon the passage of this bill granting to them a Territorial form of government, and specifically authorizing them to permit the women to join with the men in electing the officials and making the laws that will shape the destiny of that rich and splendid Territory. [Applause.] EQUAL SUFFRAGE IN COLORADO. Mr. Chairman, I am going to avail myself of this opportunity to do an act of simple justice to the women of my State and at the same time extend a favor to the millions of good women of this country and render a service to this Nation. I want to recite in a plain conversational way some of my personal experiences and individual observations extending over a period of 30 years of public life in Colorado, during nearly 19 years of which time we have had equal suffrage in our State. I may say at the outset that. I am not going to enter into a joint debate, for three reasons: First, because I have not the time; secondly, because every man who lives in an equal-suffrage State will agree with substantially everything I say there is only one side to it, and nothing to argue with any man who personally knows the practical operations of woman suffrage; and, thirdly, because men who have never lived in a woman-suffrage State and have no personal experience or actual knowledge on the subject necessarily form their opinions largely upon prejudice and the rest upon hearsay, and there is little use of arguing the question or disputing with a man who does not individually know what he is talking about. I am always glad, indeed, to tell people who want to learn or discuss the subject with anyone who is willing to form an opinion from existing facts. But it is an utter waste of time and energy to argue with people who resolutely shut their eyes to present-day conditions and whose opinions are based wholly upon the ideas of former generations. The mountain regions of the earth have ever been the birthplace of liberty and the home of freedom. I have from my boyhood days lived in the Centennial State, where we recognize our mothers and wives and our sisters and daughters as American citizens and treat them as our equals, where the men of our mountain homes have added justice to chivalry and have long since learned and have the candor and manhood to acknowledge that our women's influence in the civic housekeeping of our cities, our counties, and the State itself is as beneficial and necessary as it is in every well-regulated home. When I came to Congress I never realized, and I have not yet been able to fully understand, the deep-seated prejudice, bias, and even vindictiveness against, and the astounding amount of misinformation there is everywhere back here in the East concerning the practical operation of equal suffrage. I have been equally amazed and indignant at the many brazen assertions that I have seen in the papers and heard, that are perfectly absurd and without the slightest foundation in fact; and I have had many heated discussions on the subject during the past three years. But when I hear men and women who have never spent a week, and most of them not an hour, in an equalsuffrage State, attempt to discuss the subject from the standpoint of their own preconceived prejudices and idle impressions, I feel like saying, “May the Lord forgive them, for they know not what they say. Let me say to them and to my colleagues in the House that it will not be 10 years before the women of this country, from the Pacific to the Atlantic, will be given the just and equal rights of American citizenship. It is an old and true saying that an ounce of fact is worth a ton of theory, and it is equally true that the simple statement of one actual result of woman suffrage is worth more than all the dilettante, theoretical, antisuffrage speeches since the dawn of history. Since coming to Congress I have been frequently asked by friends what we think of woman suffrage in Colorado and if the women actually vote and if we are satisfied with it and how it works. And |