He's the kind of man a woman would have
to marry to get rid of.
Mae West
I wish William Bright (above) had been more of
a hero. In reality he was racist, and with such bad timing that he
struggled his whole life against being irrelevant. First, he was a
Democrat, which in the late 1860's was the definition of political
irrelevancy. In 1867 he emigrated westward, to South Pass City, the
rest stop astride the 7,500 foot high wagon route through the Rocky
Mountains. The transcontinental railroad was in the process of making the town and the pass irrelevant. What had drawn the 44 year old William and
his new wife, along with two thousand other miners, to South Pas was
the discovery nearby of gold. Not that William was not much of a
miner, but the next year he used what little he had made trading in
mining claims to buy a saloon...just as the gold was running out. By
the end of the year South Pass City had a total population of 60
people, and a disturbing number of them were temperance supporters,
making even Mr. Bright's saloon irrelevant..
The only good woman I can recall in
history was Betsy Ross. And all she ever made was a flag.
Mae West
Nationally, by 1869 the Democrats were
an endangered species. The party of Lincoln dominated the 41st
congress, controlling the Senate 57 Republicans to just 9 Democrats,
and 150 Republicans to just 65 Democrats in the House of
Representatives. Thus it was no surprise that when newly sworn in
Republican President Grant chose the first governor for the new
Wyoming Territory, he would be a good Republican – Ohioan John A.
Campbell. Arriving in the railroad town of Laramie the new Governor
called for an election for a two tier Territorial Legislature on
Tuesday, August 3, 1869. and shortly thereafter the newly appointed
U.S. Attorney for the territory, Joseph Carey, issued a legal opinion
that because of the new 14th and 15th
Amendments to the Constitution, no person could be denied the right
to vote because of their skin color. And that was the start of all
kinds of Wyoming insanity
Anything
worth doing is worth doing slowly
Mae
West
The turnout on election day was
disappointing. Only 5,266 men showed up to cast ballots. More might
have voted but for the gangs of drunken Democrats armed with guns and
knives guarding the polls to make certain no blacks or Asians or
people who thought blacks or Asians should be allowed to vote, tried
to vote. Still, it seems unlikely better order at the polls would
have significantly changed the outcome. The census taken the
following year found only 6,107 men in the entire territory. So it
was that when the new legislature convened in Cheyenne in October of
1869 it consisted of 12 Representatives in the lower house and 8
Councilmen in the upper house, and they were all Democrats.
A man in the house is worth two in the
street
Mae West
One of the most prominent Democrats
elected was the racist from South Pass City (above), William Bright. He was
so respected by his fellows that he was named President of the
Council (the upper house) before the legislature got down to work.
And they were very busy, passing 86 laws and 13 memorials and
resolutions by mid-December. One law ensured that male teachers
should not be paid more than women, while another guaranteed that wives
would retain property rights after separating from their husbands. And then there was the “Act to Prevent Intermarriage between White Persons
and those of Negro or Mongolian Blood,” which was self explanatory.
Governor Cambell vetoed that one, but the legislature passed it over
over his veto. And then, wrote the Wyoming Tribune, “amid the
greatest hilarity, and after the presentation of various funny
amendments and in the full expectation of a gubernatorial veto, an
act was passed enfranchising the women of Wyoming.”
Those who are easily shocked should be
shocked more often.
Mae West
William Bright introduced the measure,
labeled Council Bill (CB) 70 on November 30th. It read, in
full, “Section 1. That every woman of the age of eighteen years,
residing in this territory, may at every election to be held under
the laws thereof, cast her vote. And her rights to the elective
franchise and to hold office shall be the same under the election
laws of the territory, as those of electors. Section 2. This act
shall take effect and be in force from and after its passage.” And
according to his supporting speech, William's primary reasons for
introducing such a revolutionary measure – there were only about
1,000 females over the age of ten in all of Wyoming - was that, as
an unnamed Councilman said, “if you are going to let the n--gers
and the pigtails (Chinese) vote, we will ring in the women, too.” Three members of the council disagreed
on grounds that even as a joke neither women nor Negros nor Chinese
should be considered intellectual or moral equals to white men. But
CB70 passed the same day, 6-2 with one abstention.
Between
two evils, I always pick the one I never tried before.
Mae
West
When things got to the other side of the Rollings House hotel, where the legislature was meeting, Benjamin Sheeks, also from South Pass, led the opposition.
He tried to permanently table the bill, and when that failed he and
his allies tried adding “poison pill” amendments, such as the addition of the phrase, “colored women and squaws” to section one, and
substituting the word “ladies”, as in “ladies of the evening”
for the word “women”. That produced some laughter, but it was
defeated. Then Sheeks moved to temporally table the bill, so the
House could consider more “pressing matters” first. That passed,
but it bought the opponents only two days to lobby against the
measure.
Every man I meet wants to protect me. I
can't figure out what from.
Mae West
When the debate was resumed, opponents
tried moving to adjourn three times in a row, hoping to catch
somebody in the outhouse or off sneaking a drink of whiskey. All
three attempts failed. Then it was moved that CB70 should be reconsidered on
July 4, 1870 – seven months after the house permanently adjourned.
Amid all the laughter and snickering, that maneuver was also defeated
. But Sheeks did finally amend CB70, raising the voting age for
women from 18 to 21. After all a joke's a joke, but let's not go
crazy here. And then, finally, at 8:20 that night the house approved
CB70, 7 to 4. It was immediately moved to reconsider the issue, but
that was just as quickly defeated. And with that, finally, the issue
of female suffrage was dumped into the lap of the Republican
Governor.
The score never interested me, only the
game
Mae West
Governor John Cambell was a bit young,
but he was nobody's fool. He knew this bill was intended to mock
Republicans like himself for giving the vote to African-American males, and
because Edward M. Lee, the appointed Republican Territorial
Secretary, was an ardent supporter of female suffrage. As the measure
had moved through the legislature, Cambell had asked everybody he
could, looking for the least embarrassing option. And in the end, he
decided the best thing to do was not take the bait, not fight the
issue as he had the mixed race marriage bill. After
considering the matter for a few days Governor Cambell decided to
simply sign it, which he did on December 10, 1868. In Wyoming, females now had the
right to vote.
His mother should have thrown him away
and kept the stork
Mae West
Back in South Pass City, Justice of the
Peace R.S. Barr decided to deliver the punch line to Mr. Bright's
joke. On Valentine's day 1870 he placed an ad in the newspaper,
offering to resign his position “whenever some lady elector shall
have been duly appointed ti fill the vacancy.” Ha, ha, and no lady
appeared. But they did serve on a grand jury, and they did vote at
the next territorial election, in 1871. And the world did not dissolve into an estrogen mush
I never said it would be easy, I only
said it would be worth it
Mae West
William Bright would not stand for
re-election. His bar went bankrupt in 1870, and he moved to Denver,
and from there back to his hometown, Washington D.C. On May 3, 1912
the Cheyenne State Leader ran his obituary. “Mr. Bright was 86
years of age, and had been for twenty years past an employee of the
government printing office...(he) moved to Wyoming and...drew up and
fought through the bill for woman suffrage which was the first law of
its kind ever presented to a law-making body in the United States.”
And often, that is how you become a hero, in retrospect and with heavy
editing
I use to be Snow White, but I drifted
Mae West
In 1871, at the next meeting of the
Territorial Legislature, the male politicians, led again by Mr.
Sheek, passed a bill to overturn female suffrage. Governor Cambell
vetoed it, and the attempt to override by a two third margin failed, but only just barely. Women in Wyoming retained their voice in
their government by one slim vote. But it would be 1910 before a woman
would be elected to serve in the Wyoming legislature, and into the
1950's they were routinely blocked from serving on juries. And yet,
Wyoming insists on calling its self the “Equity State”. It seems
to me, that is something of an gross exaggeration.
To err is human - but it feels divine
Mae West
- 30 -
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