n,
and without any general movement of men or women in its favor. At
that time few women voted. At each election since, they have
voted in larger numbers, and now nearly all go to the polls. Our
women do not attend the caucuses in any considerable numbers, but
they generally take an interest in the selection of candidates,
and it is very common, in considering the availability of an
aspirant for office, to ask, 'How does he stand with the ladies?'
Frequently the men set aside certain applicants for office,
because their characters would not stand the criticism of women.
The women manifest a great deal of independence in their
preference for candidates, and have frequently defeated bad
nominations. Our best and most cultivated women vote, and vote
understandingly and independently, and they can not be bought
with whiskey or blinded by party prejudice. They are making
themselves felt at the polls, as they do everywhere else in
society, by a quiet but effectual discountenancing of the bad,
and a helping hand for the good and the true. We have had no
trouble from the presence of bad women at the polls. It has been
said that the delicate and cultured women would shrink away, and
the bold and indelicate come to the front in public affairs. This
we feared; but nothing of the kind has happened. I do not believe
that suffrage causes women to neglect their domestic affairs.
Certainly, such has not been the case in Wyoming, and I never
heard a man complain that his wife was less interested in
domestic economy because she had the right to vote and took an
interest in making the community respectable. The opposition to
woman suffrage at first was pretty bitter. To-day I do not think
you could get a dozen respectable men in any locality to oppose
it.

In 1895 U. S. Senator Clarence D. Clark wrote as follows to the
Constitutional Convention of Utah which was considering a woman
suffrage plank:

So far as the operation of the law in this State is concerned, we
were so well satisfied, with twenty years' experience under the
Territorial government, that it went into our constitution with
but one dissenting vote, although many thought that such a
section might result in its rejection by Congress. If it does
nothing else it fulfils the theory of a true representati