This was supposed to be “the year of the West” in
national politics. States that had been reliably Republican were
suddenly competitive. Two Westerners — Arizona Sen. John McCain, a
Republican, and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a Democrat — were
credible candidates for the presidency. The Democrats are holding
their national convention in Denver for the first time in a
century.
So surely the candidates and the national media
would take the trouble to learn something about the West?
Well, not exactly.
We can start with Hillary Clinton, a
Democratic candidate who talks about “all these women in their 90s”
who visit her events and tell her about “being born” when women
couldn’t vote, and how excited they are that a woman is among the
leading candidates.
Her Colorado campaign office even
produced one, a 90-year-old lifelong Denver resident named Anne
Slobko, who wants to see a woman president but who doesn’t remember
the days before suffrage.
Of course she doesn’t. Women
have been voting in all Colorado elections, including those for
president, since 1893, which was 115 years ago.
The
“national narrative” has it that women did not vote in the United
States until the passage of the 19th Amendment to the federal
constitution in 1920, and so we often hear that, even though it’s
far from the truth.
In general, the U.S. Constitution of
yore left voting qualifications up to the states. When Colorado
became a state in 1876, its constitution allowed women to vote in
school-board elections, and scheduled a referendum on “female
suffrage” for all elections, which was defeated in 1877. But
another one passed in 1893, and women have voted in Colorado ever
since. In 1900, Denver was the largest city in the world where
women could vote.
Wyoming, “the Equality State,” allowed
women to vote when it became a territory in 1869, and continued
after statehood in 1890. Women voted when Arizona became a state in
1912. Utah Territory gave women the vote in 1870.
Montana
women got the vote in 1914, and the Treasure State elected a woman
to Congress in 1916: Jeanette Rankin, a progressive and pacifist
Republican. She was serving in the U.S. House of Representatives in
1917-’19 — at a time when, according to Hillary and the lazy
national media, women could not vote.
But in most of the
West, women could and did vote before 1920. Hillary Clinton should
have known better, and so should the national media. There are no
lifelong female Colorado residents who can remember a time when
they could not vote.
The national media also seem
perplexed by Mitt Romney’s religion. The former Massachusetts
governor is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints, more commonly known as the Mormon Church.
And
generally, any lengthy story about Romney will contain three or
four paragraphs explaining the history, policies and theology of
the Mormon Church, from Joseph Smith’s visions in upstate New York
to the 1846 trek to the Great Salt Lake, as if Mormonism were as
exotic as Zoroastrianism.
This baffles me. I grew up in
northern Colorado. From first grade on, I went to school with
Mormons. I played with Mormons after school, and competed against
them in spelling bees. At various laundries and newspapers, I
worked with Mormons. Mormon missionaries come to my door with some
frequency to attempt to convert me. They’re our neighbors and
co-workers, part of our communities, and about as exotic as Chevy
pickups.
Those who fear that America is getting too
homogeneous might take comfort in this media coverage of Mormonism,
because it indicates that the West is different. If the coverage of
Mitt Romney is any guide, we have more religious diversity than the
rest of the country.
The national media also treat
“populism” as though Democrat John Edwards and Republican Mike
Huckabee were promoting something new when they rail against Wall
Street. But out here, populism is part of our political tradition.
The Populists of the 1890s were a powerful third party.
In 1890, they captured five congressional seats in Kansas and 96 of
the 126 seats in the state Legislature. In 1892, Colorado elected a
Populist governor, a dozen Populist state senators and 27 Populist
state representatives. The Populist presidential candidate that
year, James Weaver, carried Kansas, Colorado, Idaho and Nevada.
The Populist platform back then called for some reforms
that were eventually adopted: secret ballot, direct election of
U.S. senators, the eight-hour workday, the graduated income tax.
But when you read the party platform of 1892, you wonder
how much has really changed: “We meet in the midst of a nation
brought to the verge of moral, political, and material ruin.
Corruption dominates the ballot-box, the Legislatures, the
Congress, and touches even the ermine of the bench. … The
newspapers are largely subsidized or muzzled, public opinion
silenced, business prostrated, homes covered with mortgages, labor
impoverished, and the land concentrating in the hands of
capitalists. The urban workmen are denied the right to organize for
self-protection, imported pauperized labor beats down their wages.
… The fruits of the toil of millions are badly stolen to build up
colossal fortunes for a few.”
Modern populists just don’t
put the same zing in their speeches. But we Westerners do know
about populism, just as we’re familiar with Mormons. We also know
that women could vote out here well before 1920. And it’s odd that
in this “Year of the West,” the national media haven’t picked up on
that.
Ed Quillen lives in Salida,
Colo., where he publishes Colorado Central
Magazine and writes regular op-ed columns for the
Denver Post
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