SUFFRAGE IN AMERICA.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 10536, 10 August 1912, Page 4

SUFFRAGE IN AMERICA.

<" The Sun.") The storm of the woman suffrage movement has shifted momentarily from London, where the militants have ceased from', troubling while they wait for the elusive Christabel to reappear, to the State of Ohio.

It is quite within the realm of probability that the women of Ohio will be able to vote at the next Presidential election. Tho question will be decided at a special election in July. Ohio women are bending all their energies toward securing the privilege for which they have been working for many years, and the_ suffrage associations of other States in which, campaigns are not pending are straining their resources to send money, literature and organisers to every town in the State where special propaganda work is needed. The Pennsylvania Association has promised, to taka full charge of tha work in th© two oounti*s of Ohio which touoh tho boundary line b»tw«en th» two States. Indiana will handle the campaign in two of tho w«*t«rn oountiw ana lUinoia and TOveral other Stataa are contributing largely to the treasury of th© State Campaign Committee.

Suffrage amendments hare also passed the Legislatures of Oregon, Kansas, Michigan and Wisconsin and will' bo submitted to voters in November, while in New Hampshire, Arizona and Nebraska campaigns are in full swing. Governor Hunt, of Arizona, in his inaugural address to the first Legislating of the new State on March 18 said: " A very great percentage of Arizona's citizens, both men and women of varying political faiths, apparently distributed through eveiy social sphere and numbering the followings of all the callings and professions, aro in favour of equal suffrage. I therefore recommend that you submit to a vote of the people at the nest regular election a constitutional amendment extending the franchise to women, and I venture the belief that if this great privilege bo extended the State's high standard cf intelligence will in nowise suffer thereby." The women of Now Hampshire say that the outlook in their State is very favourable- for the passage of tho amendment by the convention.

The issues in Wisconsin are more complicated, owing to tho widely different elements which make up the population of the State. The Milwaukee Socialists are, of course, strongly in favour of woman suffrage, and will do all they can to help the Bill, but the Great German Alliance, on the other hand, an organisation composed of both men and women, and drawing its members from the upper middle classes, is bitterly opposed to it, while tho Roman Catholic Bishop of the State has put himself on record as definitely unfavourable to any further extension of the rights of women. It has been pointed out that the sentimental effect of the fate of the "Wisconsin Bill on the Eastern Stct especially New York, would bo alnu incalculable. Success in a populous prosper^" 7 , middle West Stato would be a much

more convincing argument at Albany than succor in a sparsely populated State in the Far West, where there are no immigration problems to be taken into consideration and where the economic stress is not so wearing.

Tho active campaign in Michigan was opened in April, when leaders from all parts of tho State assembled at a banquet in Lansing. Many members of the. Legislature attended the banquet and consulted with the women over various methods of propaganda. A large campaign fund has already been subscribed, and a number cf speakers have arranged to tour the State in automobiles, so that persons who cannot come into the towns to suffrage meetings will not lack an opportunity to hew the expounding of the equal rigliti doctrine. The Methodist Church in Kansas has come out'strongly for equal suffrage, ail four of the conferences having indorsed it. One of tho conferences has selected a woman, Mis 3 Viola Troutman, of ■Topeka, as a delegate to the national conference. Arc women have had municipal suffrage in Kansas since 1887, and at least one woman has held the office of Mayor in the State, all devotees of the cause would be horribly shocked if Kansas were to turn down the amendment. The enthusiasm over the campaign in Oregon is so widespread, that about a fortnight ago an octogenarian suffrage meeting was hold. The presiding officer, D'r Mary Thompson, was eighty-four, and. not a single one ot the speakers was under eighty. The dean of the orators was Dr X. Y. Mattieu, ninety-seven years old, ono of tlio pioneers of the early fifties.