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, until he dropped
out, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a Democrat — were credible
candidates for the presidency. The Democrats will hold 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 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
1917-1919 — at a time when, according to Hillary and the lazy
national media, women 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. Any
lengthy story about Romney will attempt to explain the 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. They’re our neighbors and about as exotic as a
Chevy pickup. But if coverage of Mitt Romney is any guide, the West
can boast of 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,
including the secret ballot, direct election of U.S. senators, the
eight-hour workday, the graduated income tax. 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.”
Modern populists just don’t
put the same zing in their speeches. But we Westerners probably
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 is a contributor to
Writers on the Range, a service of High Country news
(hcn.org). He lives in Salida, Colorado, where he
publishes Colorado Central magazine and writes columns for the
Denver Post.
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