blic
sentiment, instruct and acquaint the men and women of the state
concerning the question.

The amendment was lost by about 10,000 votes. Were four of the
ninety-nine counties (Dubuque, Clinton, Scott and Des Moines counties)
lying along the Mississippi River, not included in the returns, the
state would have been carried for woman suffrage. It is instructive
to inquire what kind of population occupied the four counties which
defeated it. The following table gives the answer:

========================================================
| | | | | Total |
| | | | Total | German, |
| | Total | Total | Foreign |Austrian,|
|Iowa Counties| | Native | and | Russian |
| |Population|Parentage| Foreign | and of |
| | | |Parentage| such |
| | | | |Parentage|
+-------------+----------+---------+---------+---------+
|Dubuque | 57,450 | 24,024 | 33,426 | 14,566 |
|Clinton | 45,394 | 19,116 | 26,278 | 11,494 |
|Scott | 60,000 | 24,104 | 35,896 | 20,119 |
|Des Moines | 36,145 | 17,769 | 18,376 | 7,828 |
========================================================

The vote on woman suffrage was 162,679 yes and 173,020 no. The "yes
vote" of the above four counties was 8,061; the "no vote" 18,941.
Subtract these totals from the totals of the state vote and 154,618
"yes" and 154,079 "no" remains, giving a majority of 539 for woman
suffrage.

Once more in the history of suffrage referenda a foreign and colonized
population decided the issue. Was the election an honest one? That
is a question of interest to Iowa just now. The returns revealed some
suspicious facts. Nearly 30,000 more votes were cast on the suffrage
proposition than in the primary. Where did they come from? The
president of the W.C.T.U., Mrs. Ida B. Wise Smith, employed a
detective after the election. His investigation covered forty-four
counties and was not confined to those wherein woman suffrage
was lost. The findings have not been given to the public in their
entirety, but they were conclusive enough to cause an injunction suit
to be filed against the Board of Elections and the Legislature to
restrain them from accepting the official returns.

Registration was necessary for the amendment, not for the primary,
yet thousands of unregistered votes ap