New York women's reaction to enfranchisements of ex-cons

From Geneva, NY: Geneva Times, February 3, 1911

WOMEN ATTACK GOV. WHITE
Denounce Ex-Chief Executive For Pardoning Convicts With Power to Vote.

Albany, Feb. 2.— Circulars issued by the Women’s Political union advocating the woman’s suffrage bills and attacking Governor White were distributed in both houses of the legislature yesterday. It bears a cartoon of convicts receiving the ballot, while mother holding a child in her arms and a college student are held back from the ballot box.

The circular says: “There has been a general belief, which we fear suffragists have helped to spread, that women are classed practically with idiots and criminals. That Is an error. The man who hs lost his right to vote (through being convicted of a crime can, freed from prison, become the object of legislation clemency and be restored to full citizenship.

“By a stroke of the pen, Governor White gave the 81 convicts the power to vote.

“Women are outclassed by criminals in the state of New York.

“When our Investigators visited the office of the secretary of state to look up thc crimes and sentences of those newly made rulers, of women, every officer who helped in the search expressed the deepest sympathy with the ex-convicts.”

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