At length the movement began to subside, and writers who passed for keen observers declared it to be at an end. The nineteenth century closed with victories for the women in only four states, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, and Idaho. The first of these states had granted the vote to women while yet a territory, and on its admission to the Union in 1890, it became the first state with full political equality. Three years later, Colorado enfranchised women, and in 1896 Utah and Idaho joined the equal suffrage commonwealths. Meanwhile, a very large number of northern and eastern states had given women the right to vote in local or school elections, Minnesota and Michigan in 1875 and other states in quick succession. Nevertheless, these gains were, relatively speaking, small, and there seemed to be little widespread enthusiasm about the further extension of the right. Of course, the agitation continued, but in somewhat obscure circles, under a running fire of ridicule whenever it appeared in public. At length it broke out with unprecedented vigor, shortly after the tactics adopted by militant English women startled the world. Within a short time new and substantial victories gave the movement a standing which could not be ignored either by its positive opponents or the indifferent politicians. In 1910, the suffragists carried the state of Washington; in 1911, they carried California; in 1912, they won in Arizona, Kansas, and Oregon; but lost Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin. These victories gave them nine states and of course a considerable influence in the House of Representatives and the right to participate in the election of eighteen out of ninety-six Senators. But the defeat in the three middle states led the opponents of woman suffrage to believe that the movement could be confined to the far West. This hope was, however, dashed in 1913 when the legislature of Illinois gave women the right to vote for all statutory officers, including electors for President of the United States. Determined to make use of the political power thus obtained, the suffragists, under the leadership of Alice Paul, renewed with great vigor the agitation at Washington for a national amendment forbidding states to disqualify women from voting merely on account of sex. _The Rise and Growth of Socialism_