1913.03.16 “Both Women and Men Can Register”, The Arizona Daily Star

Both Women and Men Can Register”, The Arizona Daily Star, 16 March 1913 Sunday morning, Section 1 [editorial page].  Transcribed by Karen Board Moran.

BOTH WOMEN AND MEN CAN REGISTER

            The emergency registration bill, which has been erroneously referred to by the newspapers and members of the legislature as the “women’s registration bill,” has passed the legislature and is a law.  Because of the fact that women were the most interested in the matter it was mentioned as affecting only them but it does more than that, it affects every voter in the state, or person who can become a qualified voter by registering.

The bill provides that the registration books shall be opened in the office of every county recorder from March 15, the date the bill became a law, until the first day of May, 1913, and biennially [sic] thereafter between the first day of May and the fifteenth day of October.

That means that the books in every county are open now and that men as well as women can register.

Under the old law neither men or women could register until the spring before the next state election.

This would disfranchise all men who have been in the state a year but who had not been in the state a year at the time the books were last opened; that is, it would disfranchise them for any special election to be held before they could register and they couldn’t register under the old law.

Now that the books are open the men who have been in the state a year have the same privilege as the women and they can register at once.  That will give them the feeling that they have a citizenship here.

The useless row over the bill made by some of the members of the house threatened to kill the bill, thus preventing all men who have now lived here a year from registering.  They didn’t think of the men, having overlooked that point in their anxiety to compel women to tell their ages.  The newcomers, men who came twelve or fifteen months ago, were forgotten.  They had a narrow escape for there was a serious fight on the bill.

Now that the women can register they are taking of going systematically to work to get all women registered.  They will do this by the work of the state suffrage association.  And they can register without telling how old they are.  All they must swear to is that they are over 21 years old.                     __________________________________