Talk:Mary Elizabeth Lease

Temperance and Suffrage Support
The claim in the intro that she supported both temperance and woman's suffrage needs a citation. Richard White in The Republic for Which it Stands: The United States During Reconstruction and the Gilded Age, 1865-1896 states the following on page 748 of the paperback edition:

"Mary Elizabeth Lease of Kansas -- 'Queen Mary of the Alliance' and perhaps its leading orator -- denounced demands for prohibition and women's suffrage as absurd. The key was economic reform."

White cites Charles Postel's The Populist Vision where he writes on page 95:

"Mary Elizabeth Lease, the 'Queen Mary of the Alliance,' left St. Louis ridiculing the demands for prohibition and suffrage as 'absurd' when compared to the economic reforms needed by the farmers. Lease would later earn a reputation for erratic and vindictive positions. But on this point she shared ground with those who believed that suffrage and politics were secondary to the economics of women's liberation."

This doesn't preclude her endorsing the policies but everything I've seen has put her as someone who was not a vocal advocate of either policy. Jleberle (talk) 00:58, 15 September 2022 (UTC)