Women at Silver Lake, 1894. Courtesy of the City of Waterloo Museum. Click the image for more details.

Around the turn of the century, provincial and federal governments held a number of plebiscite votes regarding prohibition, but no votes were acted upon in Ontario until 1916. In January of 1894, the first vote occurred, and some women were allowed to participate. Men’s ballots were printed in yellow and women’s in blue.⁵ Province-wide the results were strongly in favor of prohibition, but the Town of Waterloo voted 121 for and 448 against. Unfortunately the female voter turnout was low, and the author of an editorial in the Waterloo Chronicle berated the suffragette cause. The editorialist wrote “What is the use of conferring the franchise [of voting] on women if they will not make use of it?...And if the women with votes will not turn out to vote for prohibition is there anything under the sun that they will turn out for?”⁶

Waterloo County Chronicle, December 1, 1898. Click the image for full page.

There was a second Dominion Prohibition Plebiscite in 1898 in which Ontario voted 154,499 in favour of prohibition and 115,275 against. Comparatively, Quebec voted 28, 568 for prohibition and 122,551 against!⁷ The third vote was held in the Province of Ontario in 1902. The people of Waterloo were able to cast their votes at places that included Town Hall, Harmonie Hall, and the Brush Works factory. Not surprisingly, the voter turnout was lower than in the previous votes in both Berlin and Waterloo, but the majority of voters were still against prohibition, likely due to the prominence of local distilleries. It was reported:

“In the Twin City liquor men worked like Trojans to get out their vote, having nearly every livery rig in the two towns at their disposal, while the temperance people relied largely upon the exhortations and addresses that were given from the pulpit and platform. As a result, they should discover that elections are not won by prayer alone but by hard work.” ⁸

1902 Vote Results. Chronicle Telegraph, December 11, 1902. Click the image for full page.