In all three states the pending amendments were caught in the toils of the "wet and dry" issue. The "wets" obsessed by the idea that woman suffrage is "next door to prohibition" used their entire machinery to defeat the amendments, while the "drys" regarded the amendments as distinctly separate questions. These conditions may be regarded as the inevitable hazards of a campaign. It is, however, not at all clear that the amendments were defeated in any one of the three states by the honest "will of the majority." In none of them were women permitted to serve as watchers over their amendment. In Iowa well established proof of wilful or careless violations of laws throws doubt over the returns, while in West Virginia the suspicion of fraud rests upon the entire election. In Iowa four and in South Dakota nine counties colonized by people of foreign birth or parentage deprived the women of the state of their vote.
A Federal amendment ratified by the legislatures of the several states would secure to the women of South Dakota and Iowa the rights for which American and Americanized men have voted. The entire western or most American part of South Dakota has been twice carried for suffrage, that is, in 1914 and 1916. One county, Harding, adjacent to Wyoming, has been carried for woman suffrage in the six referenda on the question, the first one being held in 1890.
The only real argument against the Federal amendment thus far advanced is that one group of states which want woman suffrage may force it upon another group which does not want it. That argument works both ways. _A group of counties_ which want woman suffrage may be deprived of it for years because another group of un-Americanized, foreign-born citizens do not want it. The first is said to be the principle of "American sovereignty," the second may fairly be called the principle of "foreign sovereignty."
Judge of the United States Circuit Court of Appeals, New York City, and Professor in the Yale University School of Law.
I do not propose to discuss the subject of woman suffrage in the abstract. I am content with saying as regards the general question that in a republic which theoretically is founded upon the principle that government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed I think it illogical, unreasonable and an injustice to deny the vote to adult women who are citizens. With that statement I shall address myself to the suggestion of the National American Woman Suffrage Association that Congress should propose to the States an amendment to the Constitution which shall in effect provide that no State shall deny to any person the right to vote on account of sex. And as respects that suggestion I shall deal with a single phase of the matter. It seems to be supposed in some quarters that if such an amendment were to be adopted it would involve a breach of faith with the dissenting States, or violate some unwritten principle of local self-government, or conflict with the historic doctrine of State Rights.