"The Rocky Mountain News Denver Colorado Editorial Department To Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt June 30, 1893.Dear Mrs. Chapman; Yours of the 33rd. Inst. was received last Sunday, and submitted to the Association Monday evening. Much of it we regard favorably, and have already acted upon, and of that I will speak later, but now let me answer the points in your letter as you make them.1. Now prepare to be surprised; probably you will think us maniacs, but we feel that we have twice as much show as Kansas to get suffrage, and I'll tell you why. There is not a single particle of organized opposition in the state. In Kansas there is already opposition which will be strengthened by all the opponents of the measure as time goes on. You say you have talked with o one who feels the slightest hope of success in Colorado; are you sure you have talked with any one who understands the situation here?2. You refer to correspondence with our politicians who are suffragists, but are not at liberty to give us the names, yet expect us to follow a plan based solely on what they say; it seems to us that is not treating us fairly; if we have friends here that are not working with us we ought at least to know who they are, and what they propose to do . I greatly fear you are being miss-lead. For instance you refer to our \amendment\; any politician in Colorado who know anything about the matter knows that this is NOT an amendment; the Constitution provides that it, the question may be voted on at any time, and a majority vote carries it; it does not require two-thirds. They would know too, that there will be no state conventions this Fall; only country conventions, so to carry out your plan in to we would need not 3 trustworthy mean, but 156. I am afraid your advisors are not real friends. I know in writing to us Mr. Blackwell mentioned a lawyer in this city who would be such a great help to us, strong, suffragist, etc. Now we know the man to be a contemptible ward politician; if he is a suffragist it is the first good thing I ever heard of him. I do hope he is not one of your advisors. 3. Now to come to the plan; you can see that it would not be possible to get such resolutions through three conventions in each of our 52 counties unless we were very thoroughly organized."
"The Rocky Mountain News. Denver, Colorado. Editorial Department2.But we think the committee admirable, and have taken steps towards securing the representatives of the three parties you mention; I have a prominent Democrat friend who thinks he can get such a resolution adopted by the Democratic convention, and it is one of the planks of the Populist platform, but we do not hope to be able to do much in that line outside of Arapahoe county. If we get a good committee of practical politicians their advice on points of this kind will be invaluable.4. Sen. Warren would not be accepted at all in this state; about Sen. Carey I don't know; we think the idea of having men speakers from Wyoming and Kansas good, but could hardly know whom to get; however it would be easy enough to find out. Neither Mrs. Lease nor Mrs. Diggs would do here, I am told; they are ultra, and say very ill-advised things. Mrs. DeVoe I should think could do good work, and I know you could; aside from you two, I know of only two women speakers who understand Colorado politics well enough so that they would not be likely to hurt us; Mrs. S?[?].V. Emery and Clara Bowick Colby. I don't know whether they could come or not. We want to get the labor organizations to employ Mrs. Emery if we can. About any speakers the trouble is how to pay them? How are we to raise the money? Try and understand that money was never as tight in the history of the country as it is now. Every mine and Smelter in the state is shut down, practically; of course coal is still mined, but closing the smelters withdraws a heavy demand. Unless some relief comes from Congress very soon we might just as well talk of raising mountains as money. Senators Teller and Wolcott I am informed will not help us. I do not think Wolcott is even in favor of the measure.5. We have already asked help from the W.C.T.U. and they have promised to make suffrage the dominant issue, but prefer to work by themselves; it is better that they should, than that they should try to ring in prohibition on us. I do not believe we could get even that small sum of money from them."
"T. M. PATTERSON,JOHN ARKINS,PROPRIETORS.ESTABLISHED 1859SUBSCRIPTION RATES. Daily by mail, one year . . . . . $6.00Daily, by mail, six months . . . 3.00Daily, by mail, three months . . 1.50Daily, by mail, one month . . . . . .50Daily, by carrier, per month . . . . .60Sunday News, per year . . . . . . . . . . 2.00Weekly, by mail, in advance, per year . 1.00THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS.DENVER, COLORADO.EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT. Far better that it should come from women. There was some opposition in the House, but we had two thirds of the Senate; I confess this was a surprise to me; suppose Mr. Armstrong's bill had passed instead of ours -- it would have meant the same thing, and we would have been just as anxious that it should become law, but I don't believe any campaigning would have been done in any event, unless we did it; it is distinctly \our funeral'\ -- I only hope we shall not be buried next fall. Now let me explain as well as I can what we mean by a \quiet campaign\: Do you remember Mrs. Nicholls? She was a wheel-horse in 76-77; so was Judge Bomwell and some other people that we have consulted; they say work among your friends, get votes for it; many who would vote [against?] it will never discover it on their ballots unless you tell them; so far as party goes the Populists are pledged to it; the Republicans individually are no opposed, the election will be a comparatively quiet and unimportant one; make votes where you can, educate your friends to they will vote solidly for it and rouse as little opposition as possible. Judge Cromfield is particularly strong on keeping all side issues, more especially temperance out of it entirely. Of course we may fail, but there is a very strong chance that our enemies may let it go by default, if only our friends are wide awake to the situation. We have the Australian system, and you know how prohe the intelligent voter is to put his cross under the device and never cross names at all; every ballot of that kind counts one for us. Do you understand out tactics better now? Now as to asking it a campaign issue; the election will not be one when party will count for much; the highest officer elected is the Sheriff; again, practically speaking the silver issue has united all parties; if it was a national election they would all vote for silver; it is a county election, and there is a strong probability that [men?] will be voted for, rather than party. You ask what we want; first, speakers who can organize and raise money sufficient to pay their way, and next floods of literature. It is true that our Southern counties have not changed their spots nor their skins, although a \Greaser\ Senator told our Press Chairman that all the women down there had sat up nights to discuss our bill, and threatened to run him out of the county for voting against it, but it is also true that the rest of the state has changed radically. There are more people, and they are more"
"The Rocky Mountain News. Denver, Colorado Editorial Department3.intelligent; the mining districts I am told we can rely on, thanks to the labor organizations, and the silver speeches of Mrs. Lease and Mrs. Emery. At the recent convention of the Department of Wyoming and Colorado G.A.R. and W.R.C. at Pueblo here was wild enthusiasm when Mrs. Gen. Carr, president of the W.R.C. spoke for equal suffrage, and said it was to be voted on in the Fall. Let me give briefly the reasons for the hope that is in us. 1. Two years ago the Legislature was either indifferent or opposed; the press ditto. This year there were four bill for suffrage, not counting ours, and the press commented favorably in most instances; in fact I saw nothing against.2. Last fall the state went 12,000 Populist majority; women speakers helped to make that majority; equal suffrage is a Populist tenet, and those women made lots of friends for woman's cause. 3. The leading Republican paper of Denver has promised to help us. This paper, democratic, is not for, but it is the policy of Mr. Patterson (whose wife you remember) not to say anything about it; this muzzles me to some extent, but I shall get in some good work nevertheless over my own signature but this is on the side.4. Last Fall at the W.C.T.U. convention the then Governor (Routt) spoke for equal suffrage.5. This winter at his inauguration the present Governor (Waite) also endorsed woman's suffrage. 6. The school elections all over the state called out more women voters than ever before, and in most instances they elected their candidates. These are some of the straws that make us believe the wind is coming our way. Personally, I am afraid to hope; it seems as if victory would be too good to be true, but there are others who feel sure that we shall win. It would mean a great deal for the cause should we succeed. If you have time I would be glad to hear from you. I was born a suffragist, but from the time I read the advance sheets of the first volume of the history of Woman's Suffrage (sent to the St. Louis Globe-Democrat for review) when I was just a little girl, I have felt that you and Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucy Stone were the great tri-umverate to whom younger American women owe all the opportunities we have now or may gain in the future. Feeling so you can understand that a word of encouragement from you would go a long way, and also that I dislike to feel that you think we have been rash and premature. Box 1207.Yours Sincerely,[M?]Meredith Stansbury. [Ellis?]"
, Record was created after a suffrage transcription project. Inscriptions and keywords were created by Digital Volunteers in the Zooniverse crowdsourcing platform. Inscriptions have only been spot-checked but have not been checked one-by-one for accuracy.