eparate ballot-boxes
necessary and in many places these were not provided, so there was
considerable misunderstanding and confusion. On election day a wind
storm of unusual violence, even for that section of the country, raged
all day. Through the influence of the Liquor Dealers' Association,
which had used every possible effort to defeat the suffrage bill,
reporters were sent by a number of large papers in different cities,
especially St. Louis, with orders to ridicule the voting of the women
and minimize its effects. As a result the Eastern press was soon
flooded with sensational and false reports.

An official and carefully prepared report of 112 pages was issued by
Judge Francis G. Adams, secretary of the Kansas State Historical
Association, and Prof. William H. Carruth of the State University,
giving the official returns from 253 cities. The total vote was
105,216; vote of men, 76,629; of women, 28,587. In a few of the very
small cities there were no women's votes. In many of the second-class
cities more than one-half as many women as men voted. In Leavenworth,
3,967 ballots were cast by men, and 2,467 by women; in Lawrence, 1,437
by men, 1,050 by women. In Kansas City, Topeka and Fort Scott about
one-fourth as many women as men voted. In these estimates it must be
taken into consideration that there were many more men than women in
the State. In 1890, three years later, the census report showed the
excess of males to be about 100,000.

The pamphlet referred to contained 100 pages of extracts from the
press of Kansas on the voting of women, and stated that these
represented but a fraction of the comment. They varied as much as the
individual opinions of men, some welcoming the new voters, some
ridiculing and abusing, others referring to the movement as a foolish
fad which would soon be dropped. The Republican and Prohibitionist
papers almost universally paid the highest tribute to the influence of
women on the election and assured them of every possible support in
the future. The Democratic papers, with but few exceptions, scoffed at
them and condemned woman suffrage. The immense majority of opinion was
in favor of the new regime and was an unimpeachable answer to the
objections and misrepresentations which found place in the press of
all other parts of the country.

The interest of Kansas women in their political rights never has
abated. The proportion of their vote varies in about the same ratio as
that of me