Oregon Measure Nos. 302-303, Women's Suffrage Amendment (June 1906)

Oregon Measure 2
Election date June 4, 1906
Topic Suffrage
Status d Defeated
Type Constitutional amendment	Origin Citizens

Oregon Measure Nos. 302-303 was on the ballot as an initiated constitutional amendment in Oregon on June 4, 1906. It was defeated.

A "yes" vote supported this state constitutional amendment to provide women with the right to vote.

A "no" vote opposed this state constitutional amendment to provide women with the right to vote.

Oregon is one of two states that approved women's suffrage constitutional amendments on their sixth attempts. Voters approved women's suffrage in 1912, after rejecting suffrage in 1884, 1900, 1906, 1908, and 1910.

Election results

Oregon Measure Nos. 302-303
Result		Votes	Percentage
Yes		36,902	43.94%
No		47,075	56.06%

Results are officially certified.

Source

Text of measure

Ballot title

The ballot title for Measure Nos. 302-303 was as follows:

“

Proposed By Initiative Petition For Equal Suffrage Constitutional Amendment. --- Vote Yes or No.

”

Full Text

The full text of this measure is available here.

Support

Supporters

• Governor George E. Chamberlain (D)
• Harry Lane, Mayor of Portland (D)
• Oregon Equal Suffrage Association
• Women's Auxiliary of Pioneer Association
• State Federation of Woman’s Clubs
• Woman’s Medical Association

Arguments

Charlotte Moffett Cartwright, President of the Women’s Auxiliary of Pioneer Association, wrote in response to opponents of women's suffrage:

• "Women pay taxes to the state and country. Thereby, they deserve suffrage based on the motif, 'no taxation without representation.'"
• Opponents argued that women don't deserve suffrage because they don't serve in the military. Cartwright responded, “Every mother who has reared a family and done the manifold work of her household has paid a service tax to her country, which ought in all fairness to be taken as an offset for the soldiering that is not required of her.”

The Oregon Equal Suffrage Association responded to claims of economic damages that would be incurred due to the amendment:

• The association argued that the economic prosperity of states with women's suffrage has grown, while Oregon's has not: “We do not claim that the prosperity of these states is due to woman suffrage. What we do say is that the charge made in the protest of corporate interests is false, and founded upon prejudice.”
• Opponents, specifically wealthy women, criticized the amendment due to potential damages to investment interests. The association responded, “The above showing should be a rebuke to the capitalists who are trying to control, for their selfish ends, the interests which should be of mutual benefit to all Oregonians.”

Opposition

Opponents

• Anti-Suffrage Association of Oregon

Arguments

• Opponents argued that women may pay financial taxes, but they don’t pay service taxes by doing military duty, therefore they don't deserve suffrage.
• Opponents argued that the increased vote of people in lower economic classes would "hurt the business interests of Oregon, limit railroad building, and scare timid investors."

Background

State women's suffrage ballot measures

See also: State women's suffrage ballot measures

The 19th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution was ratified on August 18, 1920. The 19th Amendment prohibited the government from denying or abridging the right to vote on account of sex. Therefore, women were guaranteed the right to vote in the U.S. Constitution.

Before the 19th Amendment, the women's suffrage movement also campaigned for changes to state constitutions to provide women with a right to vote. Suffragists Carrie Chapman Catt and Nettie Rogers Shuler, in their book Woman Suffrage and Politics (1923), wrote that state ballot measures "spun the main thread of suffrage activity" in the movement's earlier years and were seen as stepping stones to national suffrage. "I don't know the exact number of States we shall have to have," said Susan B. Anthony, "but I do know that there will come a day when that number will automatically and resistlessly act on the Congress of the United States to compel the submission of a federal suffrage amendment." When asked about federal support for women's suffrage in 1908, President Theodore Roosevelt advised the suffrage movement to "Go, get another State."

Between 1867 and August 18, 1920, 54 ballot measures to grant women's suffrage were on the ballot in 30 states. Fifteen (15) of the ballot measures were approved, giving women the right to vote in 15 states. Since women did not have suffrage until after the ballot measures were approved, male voters decided the outcome of suffrage ballot measures.

Map of states that voted on suffrage ballot measures

The following is a map of which states approved and which states rejected women's suffrage ballot measures before the 19th Amendment. Suffrage was on the ballot at least once in 30 of 48 states (Alaska and Hawaii were not states until 1959). Of the 15 states that passed suffrage ballot measures, eight failed to pass measures on their first attempts. In Oregon and South Dakota, for example, suffrage measures were placed before voters at six elections before one was passed. In Utah and Wyoming, voters decided and approved women's suffrage as one provision of a ballot measure to adopt a state constitution. You can click on a state to learn more about the number of women's suffrage ballot measures that were voted on and in what years in that state.

See also

1906 Measures

• 1906 Measures
• Sex and gender issues on the ballot
• Women's suffrage on the ballot
• 1906 legislative sessions

Oregon

• Oregon ballot measures
• Oregon ballot measure laws

News and analysis

• Ballot measure lawsuits
• Ballot measure readability
• Ballot measure polls

External links

• Oregon State Library: State of Oregon Official Voters' Pamphlet
• Oregon Blue Book Initiative, Referendum and Recall: 1902-1906
• Rogue River Courier, "New Laws That Are To Be Voted On," May 25, 1906
• Morning Oregonian, "Oregon for a Square Deal," June 1, 1906