The conservative elements of a society are not the ones to venture into a new country. They remain at home and cherish traditions and customs which color all their thinking. The radical elements in society are the ones to venture to the frontiers and to colonize the new sections of a country. Democracy characterizes their government and individualism their financial undertakings. Hence it is not surprising that the five American states offering women the same political privileges as men are the newly settled states where class lines are so lax as to be almost non-existent, and where the struggle between capital and labor shows more nearly an equilibrium of forces than in the older settled states. In the western states the number of women engaged in industrial employments outside the home is small when compared with the eastern states. The total number of female breadwinners in Idaho, according to the census report of 1900, was but 14.1 per cent of all the women in the state; Colorado 18.8 per cent; Wyoming 20.8 per cent; and Utah 17.7 per cent. These figures present quite a striking contrast when compared with New York where 49.2 per cent of all the women in the state are breadwinners; New Jersey 46.5 per cent; and Pennsylvania 37.4 per cent. These figures indicate that women enjoy political privileges in the West irrespective of their economic conditions. In many of the western states men outnumber women and most women are married and at the head of households. The domestic system of industry is more prevalent than in the large eastern cities, and in sparsely settled communities; the family tends to be a close economic unit. It is reasonable to suppose that the status of women in the West, political, as well as social, is determined, not so much by economic conditions directly, as by the breaking away from an old regime weighed down by traditions and an economic condition favorable to a few. The strongest opposition to the enfranchisement of women in the West comes from the women who have no economic interests outside the home, and practically no social ones. They are unconscious of any sexual antagonism--and justly so, for the men are markedly indifferent excepting those who feel women may take too deep an interest in questions affecting certain businesses, such as the liquor interests. It is not only newly settled countries which show a tendency to grant women political rights, but countries where there is a complete change in the governmental regime, either by the throwing off of the tyranny of another country, or the tyranny of a class rule. At such a time women help to create public sentiment and take active part in the struggle to obtain liberty. Under such circumstances a demand for the extension of the franchise, either for men or women is apt to meet with approval along with other measures equally democratic.