THE SUFFRAGE VIEW
Chicago, Ill., Feb. 25. Twenty-nine [percent] of the women who registered and thirty [percent] of the men who registered voted at the primary election last Tuesday. The slightly smaller [percent] of women cannot be attributed to lack of interest, but rather to their desire to avoid the party declarations which the primary law requires of them. All discussion in the women's organizations during the past six weeks tended to confirm the belief that the women's vote would be nonpartisan. Their vote in many wards manifested real independence of judgment. In some wards -- notably two university wards where non-partisan candidates were in the field -- this was shown by remaining away from the primary, only eight and eleven [percent] respectively voting. In contrast, in the Fifth Ward, where there was a real contest against one of the old "gray wolves" of the Council who had long been opposed by the Municipal Voters' League, seventy-five [percent] of the registered women voted. Similarly in the Eleventh Ward seventy [percent] of the registered women voted. They defeated a man condemned by the Municipal Voters' League and backed by the united societies representing the liquor interests, when the men's vote would clearly have elected him. In the Eighth Ward candidates [endorsed] by the liquor interests and condemned by the Municipal League were defeated. In the Ninth Ward the candidates approved by the Municipal Voters' League were elected after a real contest, the women strengthening the better element. The women did not vote for women candidates just because they were women. In the eight wards in which there were women candidates the women's votes were widely distributed, two women candidates being defeated. In more than eight hundred precincts women served as judges and clerks of the election. More school-houses were used as polling-places than ever before, and good order and great quite prevailed.
JANE ADDAMS.
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