The History of Woman Suffrage Volume IV Part 70

In 1898 the Home for Incurable Children was founded by the Children's Aid Society, entirely the work of women.

FOOTNOTES:

[195] The History is indebted for this chapter to Mrs. Elizabeth D.

Bacon of Hartford, vice-president-at-large of the State Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation.

[196] See History of Woman Suffrage, Vol. III, p. 321.

[197] County vice-presidents, Mesdames Ella B. Kendrick, J. H. Hale, Rose I. Blakeslee, Mary L. Hemstead, George Sanger, Mary C. Hickox, the Hon. Edwin O. Dimock, Miss Elizabeth Sheldon; recording secretary, Miss Frances Ellen Burr; corresponding secretary, Mrs. G. W. Fuller; treasurer, Mrs. Mary J. Rogers; auditors, Joseph Sheldon, Mrs. S. E.

Browne; member national executive committee, Miss Sara Winthrop Smith.

Among others who have served as State officers are Miss Hannah J.

Babc.o.c.k, Mesdames Jane S. Koons, Emma Hurd Chaffee, Annie C. S.

Fenner, Ella S. Bennett, Ella G. Brooks, B. M. Parsons, Mary J.

Warren.

[198] Among those who have advocated and worked for equal suffrage are the Hon. John Hooker, Judge Joseph Sheldon, Judge George A. Hickox, the Hon. Radcliffe Hicks, the Rev. John C. Kimball, the Hon. Henry Lewis, Judge M. H. Holcomb, ex-Speaker John H. Light, ex-Gov. Charles B. Andrews, the Hon. George M. Gunn, Miss Emily J. Leon and Mrs. Susan J. Cheney. Honorable mention might be made of many others who have spent time and money without stint in efforts to advance this cause.

[199] In 1902 a revised State const.i.tution was submitted and only 15 per cent. of the electors voted on it.

CHAPTER x.x.xI.

DAKOTA.

The Territory of Dakota was created in 1861, but in 1889 it entered the Union divided into two separate States, North and South Dakota. As early as 1872 the Territorial Legislature lacked only one vote of conferring the full suffrage on women. The spa.r.s.ely settled country and the long distances made any organized work an impossibility, although a number of individuals were strong advocates of equal suffrage.

In 1879 it gave women the right to vote at school meetings. In 1883 a school towns.h.i.+p law was pa.s.sed requiring regular polls and a private ballot instead of special meetings, which took away the suffrage from women in all but a few counties.

At the convening of the Territorial Legislature in January, 1885, Major J. A. Pickler (afterward member of Congress), without solicitation early in the session introduced a bill in the House granting Full Suffrage to women, as under the organic act the legislative body had the power to describe the qualifications for the franchise. The bill pa.s.sed the House, February 11, by 29 ayes, 19 noes. Soon afterward it pa.s.sed the Council by 14 ayes, 10 noes, and its friends counted the victory won. But Gov. Gilbert A. Pierce, appointed by President Arthur and only a few months in the Territory, failed to recognize the grand opportunity to enfranchise 50,000 American citizens by one stroke of his pen and vetoed the bill. Not only did it express the sentiment of the representatives elected by the voters, but it had been generally discussed by the press of the Territory, and all the newspapers but one were outspoken for it. An effort was made to carry it over the Governor's veto, but it failed.

In 1887 a law was pa.s.sed enlarging the School Suffrage possessed by women and giving them the right to vote at all school elections and for all school officers, and also making them eligible to any elective school office. At this time, under the liberal provisions of the United States Land Laws, more than one-third of the land in the Territory was held by women.

In this same Legislature of 1887 another effort was made to pa.s.s an Equal Suffrage Bill, and a committee from the franchise department of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, consisting of Mesdames Helen M. Barker, S. V. Wilson and Alice M. A. Pickler, appeared before the committee and presented hundreds of pet.i.tions from the men and women of the Territory. The committees of both Houses reported favorably, but the bill failed by 13 votes in the House and 6 in the Council.

It was mainly through women's instrumentality that a local option bill was carried through this Legislature, and largely through their exertions that it was adopted by sixty-five out of the eighty-seven organized counties at the next general election.

In October, 1885, the American Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation held a national convention in Minneapolis, Minn., which was attended by a number of people from Dakota, who were greatly interested. The next month the first suffrage club was formed, in Webster. Several local societies were afterwards started in the southern part of the Territory, but for five years no attempt was made at bringing these together in a convention.[200]

The long contention as to whether the Territory should come into the Union as one State or two was not decided until 1889, when Congress admitted two States. Thenceforth there were two distinct movements for woman suffrage, one in North and one in South Dakota.

NORTH DAKOTA.[201]

On July 4, 1889, a convention met at Bismarck to prepare a const.i.tution for the admission of North Dakota as a State. As similar conventions were to be held in several other Territories, Henry B.

Blackwell, editor of the _Woman's Journal_, came from Boston in the interest of woman suffrage. His object was to have it embodied in the const.i.tution if possible, but failing in this he endeavored to have the matter left as it had been under the Territorial government, viz.: in the hands of the Legislature. To this end, H. F. Miller introduced the following clause:

The Legislature shall be empowered to make further extensions of suffrage hereafter at its discretion to all citizens of mature age and sound mind, not convicted of crime, without regard to s.e.x, but it shall not restrict suffrage without a vote of the people.

Toward the adoption of this all efforts were directed. Two public meetings were addressed by Mr. Blackwell, and on July 8 the Const.i.tutional Convention itself invited him to speak to its members.

After remaining in Bismarck two weeks he went to Helena to attend the Montana convention, but before leaving he succeeded in obtaining the promise of 30 votes out of the 38 necessary for the adoption of the clause. During his absence Dr. Cora Smith (Eaton), secretary of the Grand Forks Suffrage Club, was called to Bismarck to carry on the work. The secretary of the Territory, L. B. Richardson, placed at her service a room on the same floor as Convention Hall, and to this the friends of woman suffrage brought members who had not yet declared themselves in favor. Some ladies were always there to receive them and present the arguments in the case, among these Mrs. Mary Wilson, Mrs.

George Watson, Dr. Kate Perkins and Mrs. Benjamin of Bismarck.

Everything was managed with scrupulous formality and courtesy.

Mr. Miller's proposition was championed by R. M. Pollock and Judge John E. Carland in Committee of the Whole, and after a second reading was referred to the Committee on Elective Franchise, but on July 25 it reported the subst.i.tute of S. H. Moer, confining the suffrage to males. A minority report was offered, directing the Legislature at its first session to submit an amendment to the voters to enfranchise women. After a heated discussion the minority report was defeated, and the const.i.tution provided as follows:

No law extending or restricting the right of suffrage shall be enforced until adopted by _a majority of the electors of the State voting at a general election_.

By requiring not merely a majority of those voting on the question but of the largest number voting at the election, no amendment for any purpose ever has been carried.

On the question of School Suffrage women received greater consideration, the const.i.tution providing that all women properly qualified should vote for all school officers, including State Superintendent, also upon any question pertaining solely to school matters, and should be eligible to any school office.

ORGANIZATION: The suffragists were widely scattered over this immense Territory and there had been little opportunity for organized work. In the spring of 1888 a call had been issued in Grand Forks, signed by seventy-five representative men and women, for a meeting to form an a.s.sociation, and on April 12 this was held in the court-house, which was crowded to the doors. The extension of the franchise to women was strongly advocated by Judge J. M. Cochrane, Prof. H. B. Wentworth, Mrs. Sara E. B. Smith, Mrs. Sue R. Caswell and others; and encouraging letters were read from the Hon. William Dudley Foulke, Lucy Stone and Julia Ward Howe of the American Suffrage a.s.sociation. A public meeting on July 25 at the same place was addressed by Mrs. Ella M. S. Marble of Minnesota. On September 9 Mrs. Lillie Devereux Blake of New York gave a strong lecture.

Other local clubs were formed during the following years, and the first State convention was held in Grand Forks, Nov. 14, 15, 1895. It was called to order by Dr. Cora Smith Eaton, president of the local society. Mrs. Laura M. Johns of Kansas, a national organizer who had just made a successful lecturing tour of the State, was elected chairman and Mrs. Edwinna Sturman was made secretary. Cordial letters of greeting were read from Miss Susan B. Anthony, president of the National Suffrage a.s.sociation, Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, chairman of the national organization committee, U. S. Senator Henry C.

Hansbrough,[202] Miss Elizabeth Preston, president of the State W. C.

T. U., and others. In Miss Anthony's letter was outlined the plan of work that she never failed to recommend to State organizations, which said in part:

First, your local clubs should cover the respective _towns.h.i.+ps_, and the officers should not only hold meetings of their own to discuss questions pertaining to their work, but should have the men, when they go into their _town meetings_ for any and every purpose pertaining to local affairs--especially into the meetings which nominate delegates to county conventions--pledged to present a resolution in favor of the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of women. By this means you will secure the discussion of the question by the men who compose the different political parties in each towns.h.i.+p--an educational work that can not be done through any distinctively woman suffrage meeting, because so few of the rank and file of voters ever attend these.

Then, when the time comes for the county convention to elect delegates to the State nominating convention, let every town meeting see to it that they are instructed to vote for a resolution favoring the submission and indors.e.m.e.nt of a proposition to strike the word "male" from your const.i.tution. If the State conventions of the several parties are to put indors.e.m.e.nt planks in their platforms, the demand for these must come from the towns.h.i.+ps composing the counties sending delegates thereto. Women going before a committee and asking a resolution indorsing equal suffrage, are sure to be met with the statement that _they have heard nothing of any such demand among their const.i.tuents_. This has been the response on the many different occasions when this request has been made of State conventions.

From this repeated and sad experience we have learned that _we must begin with the const.i.tuents_ in each towns.h.i.+p and have the demand start there.

Dr. Eaton was elected president of the a.s.sociation.

The second convention took place at Fargo, Nov. 30, 1897. An extra meeting was held this year at the Devil's Lake Chautauqua a.s.sembly on Woman's Day, with Mrs. Julia B. Nelson, president of the Minnesota, and Mrs. Ella Knowles Haskell, of the Montana W. S. A., among the speakers. Dr. Eaton having removed from the State, Miss Mary Allen Whedon was made president.

The third convention met in Larimore, Sept. 27, 28, 1898, with delegates from eleven counties. Mrs. Chapman Catt was present and contributed much to the success of the meetings. These were held in the M. E. Church with the active co-operation of the pastor, the Rev.

H. C. Cooper. Mrs. Flora Blackman Naylor was chosen president.

The fourth convention was held in Hillsboro, Sept. 26, 27, 1899, at which Mrs. Susan S. Fessenden of Ma.s.sachusetts gave valuable a.s.sistance. A page to be devoted to suffrage matter was secured in the _White Ribbon Bulletin_, a paper published monthly under the auspices of the State W. C. T. U.

The annual meeting of 1900 convened in Lakota, September 25, 26, in the M. E. Church, its pastor, the Rev. Stephen Whitford, making the address of welcome. A Matron's Silver Medal Oratorical Contest was given under the direction of Mrs. Cora Ross Clark.[203]

LEGISLATIVE ACTION AND LAWS: In the Legislature of 1893 a bill was introduced granting women taxpayers the right of suffrage. This was voted down by the House: 18 ayes; 22 noes. A motion was offered that all woman suffrage bills hereafter presented at this session should be rejected, but it was tabled.

A bill to submit to the voters an amendment conferring Full Suffrage on women in the manner provided by the const.i.tution was introduced in the Senate by J. W. Stevens and pa.s.sed by 16 ayes, 15 noes. It was called up in the House on the last day of the session. Miss Elizabeth Preston was invited to address that body, and the Senate took a recess and came in. The bill received 33 ayes, a const.i.tutional majority, and was returned to the Senate. The House then took a recess, and during this brief time the enemies of the measure secured enough votes to recall it from the Senate. This body by vote refused to send it back, thus endorsing it a second time. The Speaker of the House, George H.

Walsh, refused to sign it. Then began a long fight between the House and the Senate. A motion was made by Judson La Moure instructing the President of the Senate to sign no more House bills until the Speaker signed the Woman Suffrage Bill. This armed neutrality lasted until 10 o'clock that night when some of the senators, who had important measures yet to pa.s.s, weakened and voted to send the bill back to the House. When it reached there a motion prevailed to expunge all the records relating to it.

In the Legislature of 1895 a bill for a suffrage amendment was introduced in the House by A. W. Edwards, editor of the Fargo _Forum_.

Mrs. Emma Smith DeVoe was sent by the National a.s.sociation to a.s.sist in the work for the pa.s.sage of this and other bills of interest to women. The courtesy of the floor was extended to her in the House and she was invited to address the members, the Senate again taking a recess and coming in to listen. Col. W. C. Plummer spoke against the bill, which received 28 ayes but not a const.i.tutional majority. No suffrage bill has been introduced since.[204]

Dower and curtesy have been abolished. If either husband or wife die without a will, leaving only one child or the lawful issue of one child, the survivor is ent.i.tled to one-half of the real and personal estate. If there is more than one child living, or one child and the lawful issue of one or more children, the widow or widower receives one-third of the estate. If there is no issue living, he or she receives one-half of the estate; and if there is neither father, mother, brother nor sister, the whole of it. The survivor may retain a homestead to the value of $5,000, which on his or her death the minor children are ent.i.tled to occupy.