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Saturday, August 8, 2015

Ralph Pool Speculates on Election Now That Women Can Vote, 1920

“How the Women May Use Ballot…The Results of a Municipal Election in One Town” by Ralph Pool, in the Friday, Aug. 27, 1920 issue of the Elizabeth City Independent.

It was the first city election in which the women of Jazztown would take part, and all were duly enthused over the latest compliment to the intelligence feminine which their men had accorded them. Young maids and old, fair and otherwise, ladies who wore their own hair exclusively and those bought a part of their tresses at the little shop around the corner—in fact, from the blushing damsel who modestly admitted to just 21 summers, to the ancient withered crone who had finally ceased to misrepresent her age, all of the ladies of Jazztown were highly elated, whether or not they admitted it, over the prospect of casting their vote for the first time.

The men of Jazztown were divided upon the weighty question of votes for women. From the first doubtful days when a few of the more aggressive clubwomen of the city had enlisted themselves in the new cause, on through the years of picketing, hunger strikes and other disturbing suffragette activities, while, slowly but surely the issue gained strength by the addition of more and more supporters, until even a new discerning politicians had lined themselves up with it, the male populace of Jazztown had been split on the question, with the majority, as indicated by the talk on the street corners, distinctly against it. When suffrage advocates finally brought the issue to the polls, the general opinion was that it would fail miserably, abjectly, utterly. Therefore, upon the day after election, a distinctly audible male gasp of astonishment went up from the roof trees of Jazztown when everybody learned that the suffrage forces had won.

Nobody could say how the suffragettes did it, but it was done, and now the fair women of Jazztown were actually going to vote for a major, a chief of police, and a host of other city officers. And nobody under heaven could tell how the ladies were going to vote!

For years Jazztown had seen one political party in undisputed control, with a voting ratio of two to one over the other. Having twice the strength of the opposition, elections had long been little more than a formality, this party electing whomsoever its moguls chose to nominate. But this year, the majority party was divided—and all on account of a woman, who, defeated by a hair’s breadth in the nominating convention, had jumped the party and formed a new and apparently powerful organization under the name of the People’s Alliance, which threatened to sweep everything before it. The woman was Mrs. Letts-Attem, and the only thing against her record was that she compelled her husband to smoke hjis corncob pipe in the woodhouse. Mrs. Letts-Attem was the nominee of her party for the mayorality, and she was a hustler. Furthermore, she was exceedingly good to look upon.

Henry Sumspeed was the candidate for mayor offered by the old majority party. He was a strikingly handsome devil of a man with no morals to speak of, and it was even darkly rumored that he occasionally played penny-ante with the boys when his wife was out of town. To illustrate the depths of iniquity of which he was capable, during the campaign preceding election day his enemies proved, beyond a doubt, that once in his younger days Sumspeed  has actually helped eat a stolen watermelon—accessory to a crime, as it were. The prospective mayor was a business man of ability, the owner and manager of a growing business.

With what they believed almost incredible shrewdness, the majority party unearthed and brought forth a candidate for mayor against whom absolutely nothing could be said. Percival P. Patootie’s purified personality permeated people with whom prudishness was popular. The history of his whole past life shown with the dazzling and unsullied glamour of a freshly whitewashed barn. There wasn’t a speck upon it. He always did the righteous thing, in a super-righteous way, and he hadn’t missed a Sunday school class from the Sunday following the day he learned how to travel the dark pathways of this world on his two delicate feet. Percival was an adept at needlework and crocheting, and the greatest triumph of his stainless career to date had been the invention of a brand new variety of drop stitch. His middle name was Purity, and he had a well-known brand of soap beat by 56-100 of one per cent when it came to absolute freedom from imperfections. Surely, such a major would cause Jazztown’s civic life to gleam with purity even as the driven snow. Unfortunately, perhaps, Percival was not particularly impressive in personal appearance, due principally to the fact that his chin dwindled away to nothingness in the vicinity of his collar.

The other candidates for civic emoluments were grouped around these three. In a way of speaking, the smaller fry were strap hangers whose chance to ride in the trolley car of state depended upon the success of one or another of the candidates for mayor. And the whole thing depended on the way the women of Jazztown cast their votes. How the deuce would they vote? Would they follow the lead of their husbands, fathers, brothers or fiancees, and thus virtually neutralize the effect of their balloting by the resulting division? Wellington Spruggs declared they would.

“I’m boss of my house,” said Spruggs one night to a group of admiring fellow townsmen gathered in a corner drug store, “and I’m going home now and tell my wife exactly how she must vote.” The bunch followed Spruggs home and listened from the sidewalk while he laid down the law to Mrs. Spruggs. Later, they carried him to the Jazztown hospital on a stretcher, where three doctors worked until midnight removing splinters of broken crockery from his anatomy.

In a desperate effort to grasp votes from each other, the three contesting parties added reform plank after reform plan to their platforms. Mrs. Letts-Attem, speaking to the Dairymen’s Association, in an impassioned burst of eloquence declared that her party was irrevocably pledged to enact a law requiring all householders to contribute annually toward a fund to provide kneepads for knock-kneed cows. Not to be outdone, Henry Sumspeed’s political organization announced through the city press that, if elected, the Sumspeed party would rid the city of the book-agent evil. Percival P. Patootie, with wonderful political astuteness, announced to the public on an engraved and delicately scented circular that, if honored by election, he would give the ladies of the city free daily lessons in the latest crocheting kinks.

Election day came. Men and women went to the polls, duly cast their ballots, and went home. The day ended, the votes were counted, and the new mayor of Jazztown was heralded far and wide. Was it the stunning Mrs. Letts-Attem, with her inspired oratory and her classy frocks, or was it the devilishly charming Henry Sumspeed, with his business acumen and his way with women? No, gentle reader, it was Percival Purity Patootie, with all his pussy-footed prudishness, who won the day. And why? Because the ladies of Jazztown were just dying to learn the very latest wrinkles in twentieth century crocheting. Percival’s circular had done the work.

Strangers who visit Jazztown nowadays notice with surprise that along about four o’clock in the afternoon the men sitting on the benches of the public square gradually begin to sidle off down the surrounding streets, while their places are taken by ladies, more and more ladies, ladies with real complexions, and ladies with real handmade complexions, until a great concourse of ladies fills the spacious square, nay, overflows it, and the volume of their endless chatter rises skyward in a babel of sound utterly defying description. In the center of the multitude from a point of vantage, one may see a slender figure in men’s clothes, minus a chin, whose fingers are deftly moving in the intricate processes which in time will produce a wonderfully crocheted baby sacque of the very latest mode. Dear reader, perhaps you have guessed that it is none other than Percival Purity Patootie, Mayor of Jazztown, in his daily crocheting demonstration!

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