Woman Suffrage in Utah.

Cromwell Argus, Volume III, Issue 141, 23 July 1872, Page 7

Woman Suffrage in Utah.

On February 12, the election of a Mayor for Salt Lake City took place, when Daniel H. "Wells, the Mormon Church candidate, was elected with 4369 votes, his opponent, S. S. Walker, only securing 532 votes. The correspondent of the San Francisco Bulletin thus writes about the female voting : Having never before witnessed the practical workings of woman suffrage, I had not a little curiosity to observe the manner in which the dearly-prized boon would be exercised. For the most part the women bore their honours meekly, seeming in many instances to be led by their husbands and fathers, rather than to come upon their own volition. There was sufficient humour in the scene to relieve its more sombre hues, and quiet spectators, like your correspondent, enjoyed a quiet laugh now and then at the expense of the eager Saints, who were struggling to engineer a bevy of polygamous wives through the swaying crowd that surrounded the polls. Scores of conveyances, public and private, among the number some of Brigham Young's, were employed by the Mormons all day long, in bringing in voters from adjoining villages and settlements. As every fresh load of female voters was deposited at the polls, might be heard cries of "Here they come." "This way, ladies." " Here's your straight ticket." " Make room for the ladies." With such cries dinning in their ears, the poor creatures were pushed through the drunken, surging crowd, and rushed through the process of depositing their ballots to make room for others. Women with children at their breasts were there by scores. Toothless old crones, so feeble and infirm that they were lifted from the waggons and assisted to the polls, exercised their glorious boon of suffrage side by side with young girls just fairly getting into their teens. Every nationality of the Caucasian race was represented in the motley and heterogeneous crew. Fair-haired Scandinavians and Danes, strong-limbed German dames, broad-shoul-dered matrons from the mii.es of Cornwall and the sunny meads of Kent, sturdy Welsh ! women, pale-faced New Englanders, all min- | gled together in one undistinguis-hable mass, j and voted as they were bid by their sovereign lords and masters. I saw Mormon husbands march up to the polls with their polygamous wives, three, four, or half a dozen, as the case may be, supply them with church tickets, and superintend their voting as a drill sergeant would manoeuvre his squad of recruits. And the poor weak slaves to the system which crushes out all individuality of action or independence of thought, uttered no word of protest, but meekly obeyed what they dared not refuse to obey. Surely such a disgraceful caricature of republican institutions was never before witnessed.