896. The
political emancipation of woman in the State of Washington is close at
hand,[8] in South Dakota,[9] Oregon,[9] and Nebraska it seems assured. In
Kansas, since 1887, women have possessed active and passive suffrage in
municipal elections. In the State of Illinois they are about to secure
it.[10] All of these are western states with a new civilization and a
numerical superiority of men.

Practical experience with woman's suffrage shows the following: everywhere
the elections have become quieter and more respectable. _The wages and
salaries of women have been generally raised_, partly through the
enactment of laws, such as laws regulating the salaries of women teachers,
etc., partly through the better professional and industrial organization
of workingwomen, who are now trained in political affairs. A comparison of
the salaries of women teachers having woman's suffrage with salaries in
states not having woman's suffrage shows the value of the ballot. The
public finances have been more economically administered, intemperance and
immorality have been more energetically combated, candidates with immoral
records have been removed from the political arena. Inasmuch as women have
full political rights in the four states named (six, including Washington
and California), they also vote for presidential electors, and thus
exercise an influence in the national presidential elections. It is the
woman with good average abilities that is most frequently the successful
candidate in political campaigns.

But as yet the number of women who devote themselves to a political life
is not large. The women in Colorado seem to have a special ability for
this. Without any consideration for party affiliations they secured the
reelection of Judge Lindsey of the Juvenile Court. Generally speaking,
they have devoted their efforts everywhere to the protection of youth. At
the present time the establishment of a special bureau for the protection
of youth is being advocated, and a national conference to discuss the
welfare of children is to be held in Washington, D.C.[11]

Because the English anti-woman's suffrage advocate, Mrs. Humphry Ward,
expressed the familiar fear that "the immoral vote would drown the moral
vote," the Reverend Anna Shaw declared at the Woman's Suffrage Congress at
London (May, 1909), that she openly challenges Mrs. Humphry Ward to
produce one convincing proof for her assertion. She herself had carefully
investigated th