Splash of Color

Mainers are celebrating 100 years of women’s voting rights by planting daffodils guaranteed to transform the spring. “The Maine suffragists used the daffodil, or jonquil, as their flower symbol,” says Anne Gass, author of Voting Down the Rose: Florence Brooks Whitehouse and Maine’s Fight for Woman Suffrage. “At hearings on suffrage in the Maine legislature, you knew which side people were on if they sported a rose or a jonquil.” Share photos of your blooming beds on Instagram: @mainesuffragecentennial, #unitedwebloom.

“In 1915, Maine suffragists (again) petitioned for a statewide referendum and were (again) denied,” Gass says. “In March of that year, an anti-suffrage poem [signed “B”] was sent to local newspapers. My great-grandmother, Florence Brooks Whitehouse, wrote a poem in response, and the amusing exchange was printed in a Portland newspaper.”

The Jonquil and the Rose

They tell a tale of suffrage,
In the good old state of Maine
That is full of lively interest
And proves the men still sane.
They tell that at the “Hearing,”
And sometimes since the close,
They have worn the lady’s jonquil,
But—they’ve voted for the Rose.

Some say that men are foolish,
“The Creator made them so
To match up with the women”;
But we doubt if it is true!
You see, while smiling blandly
And politely keeping pose,
They’ve been buttonholed with jonquils
But—they’ve voted for the Rose.

Most men are fond of flowers
But in preference draw no line,
To them the jonquil’s “beautiful,”
And the red, red rose is fine.
And so it can’t be prejudice
But conviction—made them choose.
They’ve worn the lady’s jonquil,
But—they’ve voted for the Rose.

Those ladies who have spent much time
Around the statehouse dome,
Must now feel somewhat weary,
And may rest awhile at home.
Poor statesmen, nagged and badgered!
You have earned a long repose.
You have worn the lady’s jonquil,
But—you’ve voted for the Rose.

The Jonquil and the Rose (A Reply)

We have noticed in your columns
A most elucidating rhyme
Which must have kept the perpetrator
Working overtime.
It tells how at the Hearing
Which has just come to a close,
The “voters wore the Jonquil
While they voted for the Rose.”

This is pretty propaganda
And though it isn’t true to facts,
It shows the Anti-spirit
Embodied in their “tracts.”
To score a point against us
For applause of fickle hands,
They stoop to write their arguments
On running, shifting sands.

The truth about the question
Is really quite immense
For only nine and fifty
Voters proved their lack of sense
By voting down the suffrage
And 88 men chose
To wear the Suffrage Jonquil
While voting DOWN the Rose.

In all we had a surplus
Of fifty votes to spare
If we count the House and Senate
And our friends who stood firm there.
And while the Antis seem so joyous
That hadn’t two to one
They can’t escape the knowledge
That we won at fifty-one.

We are proud to cede the Antis
That nine disloyal “reps”
Who renounced their party pledges
To aid the Suffragettes
And the Democrats, from the cities,
Which stand for rum and booze,
We also state, quite frankly,
We are honored, them to lose.

With the Senate six and twenty
And the House four score and eight,
We had a big majority
From those who legislate.
And in 1916 surely,
We will bring the war to close,
With the whole House wearing Jonquils
While Voting DOWN the Rose.

See more at mainesuffragecentennial.org.