en's suffrage has not materially altered conditions or
results in any particular, except, possibly, that there is a little
less disorder around the polling booths on election day. The largest
city in the world where women vote is Denver; and in hardly any
American town has the "social evil" been more openly prevalent or
politics more corrupt; while it has just voted _against_ prohibition.
As in the case of school suffrage, it is probable that a smaller
proportion of women are now exercising the right of suffrage than when
the thing was a novelty. In all the neighboring States to the four
women's suffrage States (Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, and Utah) a women's
suffrage amendment has been proposed to the Constitution, all the male
voters have been given a chance to vote on the question, and in every
instance it has been defeated by very large majorities. As has been
intimated, the movement to extend the right of suffrage to women
for all matters connected with schools and education has also been
arrested. Many States had adopted this principle before the year 1895,
but few, if any, during the past fifteen years. The experience of
Massachusetts, where sentiment was strongly for it, shows that the
women take very little interest in the matter; an infinitesimal
percentage of the total female population voting upon election day,
even when a prominent woman was the leading candidate for the school
committee.

Women's suffrage was adopted in Colorado in 1805, and rejected in
Kansas the same year; adopted in Idaho in 1890, and rejected in
California; rejected in Washington and South Dakota in 1898; rejected
in Oregon in 1900, in both Washington and Oregon, once at least since,
and has been rejected by popular referendum in several other States.

There is, however, an intelligent tendency, notably in the South, to
recognize the right of women to vote as property owners upon matters
involving the levying of taxes, or the "bonding" of cities, towns, or
counties, for public improvements or other purposes. Such laws exist
in Texas, Louisiana, Michigan, and possibly other States, and in
Louisiana the statute provides machinery by which women may on such
matters vote by mail. It is much to be wished that municipal affairs
and municipal elections could be separated entirely from political
ones. That is to say, that a city or town might be run as a business
corporation on its business side, and in such elections have the
property owners,