Washington Took Their Votes. These Women Want Them Back.
Meeting at Tacoma Hall, the Equal Suffrage Association thanks the state supreme court, calls the loss of the ballot an 'outrage' that 'became national in character,' and appeals to the manhood of Washington's men.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Following were the resolutions adopted by the Equal Suffrage Association, which met at Tacoma Hall on Thursday:
WHEREAS, The theory of our political institutions is that all human beings are endowed by their Creator with certain rights; that the object of government should be to secure each individual in the enjoyment of those rights, and that government should only derive power from the consent of the governed; and
WHEREAS, The practice of our government is not based upon this theory, inasmuch as one-half of our people are denied the privilege of giving or withholding their consent to the powers assumed by government; and
WHEREAS, The privilege of participating in the functions of government, for a time enjoyed by the woman citizens of Washington, has been unjustly, unlawfully and nefariously wrested from them by their fellow men, to their great injury and to the injury of the state at large; and
WHEREAS, It is a habit of those who execute and administer the powers of government to act very differently toward those whose petitions they may disregard with impunity, from what they will toward those who can call them to an account; and
WHEREAS, The strength of every government rests mainly upon the cordial support of all the governed, obtained only where a consciousness exists in the public mind that the welfare of all is the aim of the government; and
WHEREAS, The condition of affairs existing at the time of the formation of the United States government, whereby the welfare and independence of every citizen could be secured and maintained, has become greatly changed, and is still rapidly changing; and
WHEREAS, The changes that time is producing, and the exigencies that are often occurring, require a closer similitude between the theory and practice of our government; therefore
Resolved, That we consider the welfare and permanence of the American system of government requires an amendment to the United States Constitution securing to every American citizen equal rights before the law.
Resolved, That we appeal to the manhood of our fellow-men in the state of Washington to remove the foul stains that were cast upon our state by unjustly depriving the women of this state of that right held most sacred by every true American — the right of self-government.
Resolved, That we consider that not only the welfare and stability of our government, but the permanence of our present civilization, requires a higher standard of moral manhood than has heretofore existed, the production of which is dependent upon the advancement of woman, which can only be secured by endowing her with a voice in the government under which she lives; and we hereby pledge ourselves to labor in every honorable and lawful way to accomplish this purpose.
Resolved, That we tender to the supreme court of our state our heartfelt thanks for reversing the decision of the supreme court of our territory in the case of Washington versus Harlan.
Resolved, That in depriving the women citizens of the territory of Washington of the right of suffrage, an outrage was perpetrated which in its effect became national in character, and that the National American Woman Suffrage Association is hereby earnestly requested to aid in properly presenting the case of Bloomer vs. Todd et al. when it is called in the U.S. supreme court, which court, we are informed, has refused to dismiss the case on the motion of attorney for plaintiff.
“The privilege of participating in the functions of government, for a time enjoyed by the woman citizens of Washington, has been unjustly, unlawfully and nefariously wrested from them by their fellow men, to their great injury and to the injury of the state at large.”
Washington women actually voted for four years — from the territorial franchise act of 1883 until the territorial supreme court struck it down in Harland v. Washington in 1887 — and did not vote again until a state constitutional amendment passed in 1910, a decade ahead of the Nineteenth Amendment. The suffragists' core argument here, that a government forfeits legitimacy when it revokes a right people have already exercised, is the same argument made wherever ballot access is narrowed today. And the detail that stings: they had to formally thank a court for the privilege of being heard at all.
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