Today -100: November 3, 1915: For the good of the State and the good of the women

Election results are coming in. Women’s suffrage was crushed in New York, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania.

These defeats, following that in New Jersey last month, will lead to a shift in tactics by suffragists to a federal suffrage amendment, bypassing hostile male voters (in any case most of the states voting this year have provisions preventing a re-vote on the issue for 4 or 5 years).

The NYT, as is the custom, gloats: “The defeat of woman suffrage in three great Eastern States yesterday... is unmistakable and ample notice to the suffragists that the old, highly developed, populous, complex Commonwealths of the East will have none of a political experiment that some simpler, meagerly settled communities fo the West have ventured to make. ... It could not be accepted there with the easy carelessness of sparse Western populations eager for innovations. The men of the mighty industrial States voted it down for the good of the State and the good of the women.”

Mississippi’s new governor is Theodore Bilbo (D), a racist with a funny name. Read that Wikipedia entry, he sounds like the second coming of Coleman Blease. Unfortunately, the NYT didn’t cover his election campaign and it won’t cover his antics in office; according to the index, the next mention of him in the paper is a year and a half from now.

Massachusetts’s new governor is Samuel W. McCall (R) and its new lt. governor is Calvin Coolidge. The term for both those offices was one year.

New Yorkers reject the constitution the Constitution Convention came up with. Probably a good thing.

Ohio votes down prohibition.

Hey, a false rumor about the death of a German crown prince. It’s been a while. How I’ve missed you, false rumors about the deaths of German princes.

Don't see comments? Click on the post title to view or post comments.