erate is universally an antiwomen
suffragist.

The ever present prohibition issue again played an important if not
a determining part. A prohibition law was voted in by an immense
majority in 1912, but the undismayed "wets" propose to secure a
resubmission if possible. They apparently regarded the woman suffrage
amendment as an outer defense to be taken before the march on the main
prohibition fort could be begun; and every "wet," high and low, was
on duty. The "drys" who would do well to study Napoleon's rule of
strategy, that is, "find out what your enemy doesn't want you to do,
and then do it," were much disturbed as to what St. Paul would think
were he here, and concluded not to be over hasty about giving the
women the vote.

At the Democratic convention an anti woman suffragist spoke. The
applause in the gallery and in the standing groups filling the outside
aisles was uproarious and clearly represented an organized, carefully
planted claque. The leaders were an ex-brewer, an ex-saloonkeeper and
the chief liquor lobbyist of the state. It was evident that they were
there to intimidate the party, and they did. The Democrats threw
a bouquet to the women in the form of a plank and then quietly
repudiated it. Practically the same thing happened in the Republican
convention. They, too, endorsed a plank and "double-crossed." There
was apparently no difference between the two dominant parties on that
score. Men who had always been pronounced suffragists weakly confessed
themselves afraid to speak for woman suffrage in the campaign lest
votes be lost for their party. Political campaigners who went into the
state, with the exception of Senator Borah and Raymond Robins, were
told not to mention suffrage, and they obeyed. The wets apparently had
the state literally by the throat and in order to save votes the great
fundamental principle of "government by the people" was refused a
public hearing. Election Day came. Women poll workers reported from
many parts of the state that drunken hoodlums were marched in line
into the precinct, saying boldly that they were going to vote "agin
the ---- women." The women workers testified with remarkable unanimity
that their opposition was chiefly "riffraff and illiterate negroes and
that it was under the direction of well-known 'wets.'" Even an excise
commissioner under pay of the National Government worked against woman
suffrage all day in one precinct.

A premonition of what might happ