Good morning, Whitewater
Well, it really is a new day, today. Over one hundred million people, having chosen freely, look in a different direction.
In the City of Whitewater today there’s a meeting of the Landmarks Commission at 5 p.m.
In our schools today, it’s the end of the first quarter — three more to go. At 7 p.m. tonight, there will be an FFA meeting at the high school.
The National Weather Service forecast predicts a breezy day with a high temperature of 72 degrees. The Farmers’ Almanac predicts a day of “Dry and Cold” conditions. They’ll not both be right, although both might be wrong.
Yesterday’s better prediction: NWS — it wasn’t cold. The FA was so far off yesterday, that I could make all its forecasts up. That’s the problem about trying to forecast the day’s weather a year in advance. It’s not a challenge of weather, it’s a challenge of planning and prediction.
In Wisconsin history on this date, in 1912, a predictable result, from the Wisconsin Historical Society: Women’s Suffrage Voted Down:
n this date Wisconsin voters (all male) considered a proposal to allow women to vote. When the referendum was over, Wisconsin men voted women’s suffrage down by a margin of 63 to 37 percent. The referendum’s defeat could be traced to multiple causes, but the two most widely cited reasons were schisms within the women’s movement itself and a perceived link between suffragists and temperance that antagonized many German American voters. Although women were granted the vote in 1920 by the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, Wisconsin’s own constitution continued to define voters as male until 1934.
The Wisconsin Historical Society’s assessment is too funny, really — a link with ‘temperance that antagonized many German American voters.’ I’m not suggesting the Historical Society assessment is wrong, but that it’s embarrassing that voters might have thought this way. One might not have been a supporter of the temperance movement, but of suffrage regardless.
At least, that’s the hope. Beer and suffrage — perfect together.