LI. COLORADO
Great American Desert--Organized as a Territory, February 28, 1860--Gov. McCook's Message Recommending Woman Suffrage, 1870--Adverse Legislation--Hon. Amos Steck--Admitted to the Union, 1876--Constitutional Convention--Efforts to Strike Out the Word "Male"--Convention to Discuss Woman Suffrage--School Suffrage Accorded--State Association Formed, Alida C. Avery, President--Proposition for Full Suffrage Submitted to the Popular Vote--A Vigorous Campaign--Mrs. Campbell and Mrs. Patterson of Denver--Opposition by the Clergy--Their Arguments Ably Answered--D. M. Richards--The Amendment Lost--The Rocky Mountain News.
That our English readers may appreciate the Herculean labors that the advocates of suffrage undertake in this country in canvassing a State, they must consider the vast territory to be traveled over, in stages and open wagons where railroads are scarce. Colorado, for example, covers an area of 104,500 square miles. It is divided by the Rocky Mountains running north and south, with two hundred lofty peaks rising thirteen thousand feet above the level of the sea, and some still higher. To reach the voters in the little mining towns a hundred miles apart, over mountains such as these, involves hardships that only those who have made the journeys can understand. But there is some compensation in the variety, beauty and grandeur of the scenery, with its richly wooded valleys, vast parks and snow-capped mountains. It is the region for those awake to the sublime in nature to reverently worship some of her grandest works that no poet can describe nor artist paint. Here, too, the eternal struggle for liberty goes on, for the human soul can never be attuned to harmony with its surroundings, especially the grand and glorious, until the birthright of justice and equality is secured to all.
For a history of the early efforts made in the Centennial State to secure equal rights for women, we are indebted to Mrs. Mary G. Campbell and Mrs. Katharine G. Patterson, two sisters who have been actively interested in the suffrage movement in Colorado, as follows:
In 1848, while those immortal women whose names will be found on many another page of the volume in which this chapter is included, were asking in the convention at Seneca Falls, N. Y., that their equal membership in the human family might be admitted by their husbands, fathers and sons, Colorado, unnamed and unthought of, was still asleep with her head above the clouds. Only two mountain-tops in all the-world were nearer heaven than hers, and they, in far Thibet, had seen the very beginnings of the race which, after six thousand years, had not yet penetrated Colorado. Islanded in a cruel brown ocean of sand, she hid her treasures of gold and silver in her virgin bosom and dreamed, unstirred by any echoes of civilization. When she woke at last it was to the sound of an anvil chorus--to the ring of the mallet and drill, and the hoarse voices of men greedy only for gold.
In 1858, when the Ninth National Convention of women to demand their legal rights was in session in New York, there were only three white women in the now rich and beautiful city of Denver. Still another ten years of wild border life, of fierce vicissitudes, of unwritten tragedies enacted in forest and mine, and Colorado was organized into a territory with a population of 5,000 women and 25,000 men.
The first effort for suffrage was made in 1870, during the fifth session of the legislative assembly, soon after General Edward McCook was sent out by President Grant to fill the gubernatorial chair. In his message to the legislature, he promptly recommended to the attention of its members the question of suffrage for woman:
Before dismissing the subject of franchise, I desire to call your attention to one question connected with it, which you may deem of sufficient importance to demand some consideration at your hands before the close of the session. Our higher civilization has recognized woman's equality with man in all respects save one--suffrage. It has been said that no great reform was ever made without passing through three stages--ridicule, argument, and adoption. It rests with you to say whether Colorado will accept this reform in its first stage, as our sister territory of Wyoming has done, or in the last; whether she will be a leader or a follower; for the logic of a progressive civilization leads to the inevitable result of a universal suffrage.
This was the first gun of the campaign, and summoned to the field various contending forces, armed with ridicule, argument, or an optimistic diplomacy, urging an immediate surrender of the ground claimed. Bills favoring the enfranchisement of women were discussed both in the Territorial Council Chamber and in the lower House of the legislature. The subject was taken up by the press and the people, and not escaping its meed of ridicule, was seriously dealt with by both friend and enemy. Perhaps the western champions of woman's recognition as an intelligent part of the body politic were brought to understand the full meaning of her disabilities by their own experiences as territorial minors. Certain it is that the high spirit of the citizens of Colorado chafed intolerably under the temporary limitations of accustomed rights of sovereign manhood. The federal government, in the capacity of regent, sent to these territorial wards their officers and governors and fixed the rate of their taxation without full representation. These wards were indeed empowered, as were the people of their sister territories, to elect a delegate to the national congress, whose opinions upon territorial matters were allowed expression in that body, but who could no more enforce there his convictions upon important measures, by a vote, than could the most intelligent woman of this territory upon the question of his election to represent her interests.
In the Colorado papers of those days of territorial tutelage, there appeared repeatedly most impatient protests against these humiliating conditions of citizenship. With the attainment of statehood in 1876 there came to the men of Colorado a restoration of their full rights as citizens of the Republic. According to the proscriptive usage, the humiliating conditions of citizenship without the ballot, remained to the women of the Centennial State; and those of their reenfranchised brothers who had felt most keenly their own unaccustomed restrictions, were without doubt the foremost advocates of the movement to secure the full recognition of women's rights.
The majority of the territorial legislative assembly of 1870 was unexpectedly Democratic, and almost as unexpected was the favor promptly shown by the Democratic members to the passage of the bill proposing woman suffrage. The measure was indeed characterized by the opposing Republicans, as "the great Democratic reform," and for weeks seemed destined to triumph through Democratic votes, in spite of the frivolous and serious opposition of the Republican minority, and the few Democratic members who deserted what then seemed the party policy upon this question. The pleas urged in advocacy of the new movement, as well as the protests urged against it, were substantially the same as were used in the East at that stage of the question. Accompanying them were the extravagancies of hope and fear incident to the early consideration of every suggested change in a long-accepted social order. An impossible Utopia was promised on the one hand no less confidently than was predicted upon the other a dire iconoclasm of the sacred shrine of long-adored ideals, as a consequence of simply granting to intelligent women a privilege justly their due. Both the derision and the adverse reasoning of the alarmists were well met by fearless friends, in Council and House. Bills looking to the removal of woman's disabilities were referred in each to a select committee for consideration, on January 19. The majority report to the House through the chairman of its special committee, M. DeFrance, was an able advocacy of the measure under consideration, while the adverse recommendation of the Council committee was accompanied by an excellent report by Hon. Amos Steck, setting forth clearly the reasons of the minority for their favorable views. After hearing the reports, both Houses went into committee of the whole for a free discussion upon the question.
"The criterion of civilization, physical force," "Strength as the measure of right,"--as recent writers have defined the divine right of might--seemed the basis of reasoning with those who claimed that woman should not be given the ballot because she might not carry the sword. Dark pictures were drawn of possible women as electors plunging their country into wars, from whose consequences they would themselves suffer nothing. By the more hopeful it was urged that the mighty heart, the moral force of humanity, as represented in womanhood, and united with clear womanly intelligence, would prove a greater power in all State interests than sword or bayonet.
The strongest speaker in the legislature upon the subject of suffrage--President Hinsdale of the Council--was, unfortunately, a bitter enemy of the proposed reform. Yet some of his most forcible utterances made in committee of the whole, were excellent arguments in favor of, rather than against the measure. Excellent arguments in favor of the bill in question were made by leading members of the House--Messrs. Lea, Shepard and DeFrance. By invitation of the legislature, that body was addressed by a prominent member of the Denver bar, Mr. Willard Teller, the brother of one of our U. S. senators. The hall was filled by an interested audience to hear Mr. Teller's address, which was a strong presentation of the principles upon which rest the claims of American citizens to universal suffrage.
Outside the assembly halls, Governor McCook and his beautiful, accomplished, and gracefully aggressive wife, strongly favored the affirmative of the question at issue, while Willard Teller, D. M. Richards and other distinguished men and women of the territory were active friends during the contest. In the press, the measure had a most influential support in the Daily Colorado Tribune, a well-conducted Denver journal, edited by Mr. R. W. Woodbury. Space in its columns was given to well-written articles by contributors interested in the success of the cause, and many able editorials appeared, embodying strong arguments in favor of the reform, or answering the opposing bitterness and frivolity of its contemporary the Rocky Mountain News. The interest in the proposed innovation was indeed quite general throughout the territory, but wherever the subject was discussed, in the legislative halls, in private conversation, editorial column, or correspondence of the press, the grounds argumentatively traversed were the same highways and byways of reason and absurdity which have been so often since gone over.
There was perhaps one lion in the way of establishing universal suffrage in the West, which the eastern advocates did not fear. It was said that our intelligent women could not be allowed to vote, whatever the principles upon which the right might be claimed, because in that case, the poor, degraded Chinese women who might reach our shores, would also be admitted to the voting list, and what then would become of our proud, Caucasian civilization? Whether it was the thought of the poor Mongolian slave at the polls, or some other equally terrifying vision of a yearly visit of American women to the centre of some voting precinct, the majority of the Colorado legislative assembly of 1870, in spite of all the free discussion of the campaign of that year, decided adversely. In the latter days of the session, the bill having taken the form of a proposition to submit the question at issue to the already qualified voters of the territory, was lost in the council chamber by a majority of one, and in the House by a two-thirds majority, leaving to the defeated friends of the reform as their only reward, a consciousness of strength gained in the contest.
A few years more made Denver a city beautiful for habitation, made Colorado a garden, filled that goodly land with capable men, and intelligent, spirited women. Statehood had been talked of, but lost, and then men began to say: "The one hundredth birthday of our American independence is so near, let us make this a centennial State; let the entrance into the Union be announced by the same bells that shall ring in our national anniversary." And so it was decreed. Mindful of 1776--mindful too, of the second declaration made by the women at the first equal rights convention in 1848, the friends of equality in Colorado determined to gird themselves for a supreme effort in anticipation of the constitution that was to be framed for the new State to be.
A notice was published asking all persons favorable to suffrage for women, to convene in Denver, January 10, to take measures to secure the recognition of woman's equality under the pending constitution. In pursuance to this call, a large and eager audience filled Unity Church long before the hour appointed for the meeting. A number of the orthodox clergy were present. The Rev. Mrs. Wilkes of Colorado Springs, opened the exercises with prayer. Mrs. Margaret W. Campbell of Massachusetts was then introduced, and said: "This convention was called to present woman's claims to the ballot, from her own stand-point, and to take such measures to secure the recognition of her equality in the constitution of Colorado, as the friends gathered from different parts of the territory may think proper. We do not ask that women shall take the places of men, or usurp authority over them; we only ask that the principles upon which our government is founded shall be applied to women.
Rev. Mrs. Wilkes made an especial point of the fact that in Colorado Springs women owned one-third of the taxable property, and yet were obliged (at the recent spring election) to see the bonds for furnishing a supply of pure water, voted down because women had no voice in the matter. This had been a serious mistake, as the physicians of the place had pronounced the present supply impure and unwholesome. She referred to the fears of many that the constitution, freighted with woman suffrage, might sink, when it would else be buoyant, and begged her hearers not to fear such a burden would endanger it. The convention continued through two days with enthusiastic speeches from Mr. D. M. Richards and Rev. Mr. Wright, who preferred to be introduced as the nephew of Dr. Harriot K. Hunt of Boston. Letters were read from Lucy Stone and Judge Kingman, and an extract from the message of Governor Thayer of Wyoming, in which he declared the results of woman suffrage in that territory to have been beneficial and its influence favorable to the best interests of the community. A territorial society was formed with an efficient board of officers;[487] resolutions, duly discussed, were adopted, and the meeting closed with a carefully-prepared address by Dr. Avery, the newly-elected president of the territorial association.
The committee[488] appointed to wait upon the constitutional convention were received courteously by that body, and listened to with respectful attention. One would have thought the gentlemen to whom the arguments and appeals of such women were addressed would have found it in their hearts to make some reply, even while disclaiming the official character of their act; but they preserved a decorous and non-committal, if not incurious silence, and the ladies withdrew. The press said, the morning after their visit: "The gentlemen were all interested and amused by the errand of the ladies." The morning following, the constitutional convention was memorialized by the Suffrage Association of Missouri, and was also presented with a petition signed by a thousand citizens of Colorado, asking that in the new constitution no distinction be made on account of sex. This was only the beginning. Petitions came in afterwards, numerously signed, and were intended to have the force of a sort of ante-election vote.
Denver presented an interesting social aspect at this time. It was as if the precursive tremor of a moral earthquake had been felt, and people, only half awake, did not know whether to seek safety in the house, or outside of it. Women especially were perplexed and inquiring, and it was observed that those in favor of asking a recognition of their rights in the new State, were the intelligent and leading ladies of the city. The wives of ministers, of congressmen, of judges, the prominent members of Shakespeare clubs, reading circles, the directors of charitable institutions,--these were the ones who first ranged themselves on the side of equal rights, clearly proving that the man was right who pointed out the danger of allowing women to learn the alphabet.
When February 15 came, it was a momentous day for Colorado. The report of the Committee on Suffrage and Elections was to come up for final action. As a matter of fact there were two reports; that of the minority was signed by two members of the committee, Judge Bromwell, whose breadth and scholarship were apparent in his able report, and a Mexican named Agapita Vigil, a legislator from Southern Colorado where Spanish is the dominant tongue. Mr. Vigil spoke no English, and was one of those representatives for whose sake an interpreter was maintained during the session of the convention.
Ladies were present in large numbers. Some of the gentlemen celebrated the occasion by an unusual spruceness of attire, and others by being sober enough to attend to business. The report with three-fifths of the signatures, after setting forth that the subject had had careful consideration, went on to state the qualifications of voters, namely, that all should be male citizens, with one exception, and that was, that women might vote for school district officers.
Mr. A. K. Yount of Boulder, spoke in favor of the motion to strike out the word "male" in section 1: "That every male person over the age of 21 years, possessing the necessary qualifications, shall be entitled to vote," etc. He called attention to the large number of petitions which had been sent in, asking for this, and to the fact that not a single remonstrance had been received. He believed the essential principles of human freedom were involved in this demand, and he insisted that justice required that women should help to make the laws by which they are governed. The amendment was lost by a vote of 24 to 8.
Mr. Storm offered an amendment that women be permitted to vote for, and hold the office of, county superintendent of schools. This also was lost. The only other section of the report which had any present interest to women, was the one reading:
SECTION 2. The General Assembly may at any time extend by law the right of suffrage to persons not herein enumerated, but no such law shall take effect or be in force until the same shall have been submitted to a vote of the people, at a general election, and approved by a majority of all the votes cast for and against such law.
After much discussion it was voted that the first General Assembly should provide a law whereby the subject should be submitted to a vote of the electors.
After this the curtain fell, the lights were put out, and all the atmosphere and mise en scene of the drama vanished. It was well known, however, that another season would come, the actors would reaeppear, and an "opus" would be given; whether it should turn out a tragedy, or a Miriam's song of deliverance, no one was able to predict. Meantime, the women of Colorado--to change the figure--bivouacked on the battle-field, and sent for reinforcements against the fall campaign. They held themselves well together, and used their best endeavors to educate public sentiment.
A column in the Denver Rocky Mountain News, a pioneer paper then edited by W. N. Byers, was offered the woman suffrage association, through which to urge our claims. The column was put into the hands of Mrs. Campbell, the wife of E. L. Campbell, of the law firm of Patterson & Campbell of Denver, for editorship. This lady, from whose editorials quotations will be given, was too timid (she herself begs us to say cowardly) to use her name in print, and so translated it into its German equivalent of Schlachtfeld, thus nullifying whatever of weight her own name would have carried in the way of personal and social endorsement of an unpopular cause. Her sister, Mrs. T. M. Patterson, an early and earnest member of the Colorado Suffrage Association, "bore testimony" as courageously and constantly as her environment permitted.
Mrs. Gov. McCook, as previously stated, had been the first woman in Colorado to set the example of a spirited claim to simple political justice for her sex, but she, alas! at the date now reached in our sketch, was dead--in her beautiful youth, in the first flower of her sweet, bright womanhood. Her loss to the cause can best be measured by those who know what an immense uplifting power is present when an intelligent man in an influential position joins his personal and political force to his wife's personal and social force in the endeavor to accomplish an object dear to both.
It is a pity not to register here, however inadequately, some outline of many figures that rise to form a part of the picture of Colorado in 1876-7. When liberty shall have been achieved, and all citizens shall be comfortably enjoying its direct and indirect blessings, this book should be found to have preserved in the amber of its pages the names of those who bravely wrought for freedom in that earlier time. Would that one might indeed summon them all by a roll-call! But they will not answer--they say only: "Let our work stand for us, be its out-come small or great."
To Dr. Alida C. Avery, however, whatever the outcome, a weighty obligation is due from all past, present and future laborers in this cause in Colorado. She it was who set at work and kept at work the interplay of ideas and efforts which accomplished what was done. Through her personal acquaintance with the immortals at the East, Lucy Stone, Susan B. Anthony, Henry B. Blackwell, she drew them to Colorado during the campaign about to be described, and with them came others. Mrs. M. W. Campbell and her husband reaeppeared to do faithful service, and then came also Miss Lelia Patridge of Philadelphia, a young, graceful, and effective speaker,--so the local papers constantly describe her, and then came, in the person of Miss Matilda Hindman of Pittsburg Pa., one of the ablest women of the whole campaign. Gentle, persuasive, womanly, she was at the same time armed at all points with fact, argument, and illustration, and her zeal was only equaled by her power of sustained labor.
Many of these same qualities belong to Mrs. M. F. Shields, of Colorado Springs, one of the committee on constitutional work in the campaign of 1876, and an ardent, unceasing, unselfish laborer in the church, in suffrage and temperance, for more than ten years. She did not lecture, but "talked"; talked to five hundred men at a time as if they were her own sons, and only needed to be shown they were conniving at injustice, in order to turn about and do the right thing. This same element of "motherliness" it was, which gained her the respectful attention of an audience of the roughest and most ignorant Cornish miners up in Caribou, who would listen to no other woman speaking upon the subject. When the members of the famous constitutional committee were considering the suffrage petition, prior to making their report, Judge Stone of Pueblo, tried to persuade the Spanish-speaking member that to grant the franchise to women would be to be false to his party, as those women were all Democrats. But Senor Vigil replied that he had been talking through his interpreter to the "nice old lady, who smiled so much" (meaning Mrs. Shields), and he knew what they asked was all right, and he should vote for it.
Of the men who were willing to obey Paul's entreaty to "help those women," must be named in the front rank David M. Richards of Denver, a pioneer of '59, and as brave and generous and true a heart as ever beat in time to the pulse of progress, Rev. B. F. Crary, a true apostolic helper, Mr. Henry C. Dillon, a young western Raleigh for knightly chivalry, Hon. J. B. Belford, member of congress then and now, Judge H. P. H. Bromwell, who needs no commendation from the historian, as his eloquent minority report speaks adequately for him; these, and very many more, both men and women, have, as the French say, "deserved well of the State and of their generation."
And it was once more to the aid of these men and women that the East sent reinforcements as soon as the winter of 1877 was well ushered in. An annual convention was announced for January 15, in Denver. When the bitter cold evening came it seemed doubtful if any great number of persons would be present, but the large Lawrence street Methodist Church was, on the contrary, packed to its utmost capacity. Rev. Mr. Eads, pastor of the church, opened the meeting with prayer, and Dr. Avery, as president of the association, gave a brief resume of the work during its one year of existence. Colonel Henry Logan of Boulder (formerly of Illinois), made a manly and telling speech in favor of a measure which he called one of axiomatic justice. Mrs. Wright of New York, after a piquant address, announced the meeting of the convention for the next day. On the following morning a business session was held, and officers elected for the year.[489] In the afternoon speeches were made by Dr. Crary, Mrs. Shields, and Mr. David Boyd of Greeley, and in the evening by Mr. Henry C. Dillon and Rev. J. R. Eads, the closing and crowning speech of the convention being given by Miss Laura Hanna of Denver, a petite, pretty young girl, whose remarks made a bonne bouche with which to close the feast. Interest in the subject rose to fever heat before October. Pulpit, press and fireside were occupied with its discussion. The most effective, and at the same time, exasperating opposition, came from the pulpit, but there was also vigorous help from the same quarter. The Catholic Bishop preached a series of sermons and lectures, in which he fulminated all the thunders of apostolic and papal revelation against women who wanted to vote:
Though strong-minded women who are not satisfied with the disposition of Providence and who wish to go beyond the condition of their sex, profess no doubt to be Christians, do they consult the Bible?--do they follow the Bible? I fear not. Had God intended to create a companion for man, capable of following the same pursuits, able to undertake the same labors, he would have created another man; but he created a woman, and she fell. * * * The class of women wanting suffrage are battalions of old maids disappointed in love--women separated from their husbands or divorced by men from their sacred obligations--women who, though married, wish to hold the reins of the family government, for there never was a woman happy in her home who wished for female suffrage. * * * Who will take charge of those young children (if they consent to have any) while mothers as surgeons are operating indiscriminately upon the victims of a terrible railway disaster? * * * No kind husband will refuse to nurse the baby on Sunday (when every kind of business is stopped) in order to let his wife attend church; but even then, as it is not his natural duty, he will soon be tired of it and perhaps get impatient waiting for the mother, chiefly when the baby is crying.
These, with the omnipresent quotations from St. Paul to the effect that women shall keep silence in the church, etc., formed the argument of the Bishop in two or three lengthy sermons. Indignant men, disgusted with the caliber of the opposition and yet obliged to notice it on account of the position of the divine, made ample rejoinders. Rev. Dr. Crary of Golden, in an exhaustive review of the Bishop's discourse, deprecated the making permanent and of universal application the commands which with Paul were evidently temporary and local, and said half the churches in Christendom would be closed if these were literally obeyed:
"Women should not usurp authority, therefore men should usurp all authority." This is the sort of logic we have always heard from men who are trotting along in the wake of progress and howling because the centuries do not stop rolling onward. In barbarous regions Paul is paraded against educating girls at all. In half-civilized nations Paul is doing service against educating girls except in the rudiments. Among people who are just beginning to see the hill-tops of a higher, nobler world, Paul is still on duty crowding off women from high-schools and colleges. Proud universities to-day have Paul standing guard over medical meanness and pushing down aspiring female souls from the founts of knowledge. Within our memory Paul has been the standing demonstration in favor of slavery, intemperance and the oppression of women.
Another sermon in which the Bishop lays solemn stress on the one sacred, inevitable duty of women to become wives and mothers, was answered by Mr. David Boyd of Greeley, who, among other things, asks the Bishop:
How, in view of the injunction to increase and multiply, he can justify the large celibate class created by positive command of the Catholic church, not only by the ordination of priests, but by the constant urging of the church that women should become the barren brides of Christ by taking on them the vows of nuns.
The Bishop published his lectures in pamphlet form, that their influence might be far-reaching, and curiously enough, the very same lectures were printed and scattered by the friends of suffrage as the best sort of document for the campaign now fairly inaugurated. D. M. Richards, the able chairman of the executive committee, and Dr. Avery, president of the association, showed themselves capable of both conceiving and executing a plan of operations which had the merit of at least deserving victory.
There was no lack of pens to defend women's claim to equal chances in the struggle for existence. In Denver, the Rocky Mountain News and the Times planted themselves fairly and squarely in an affirmative attitude, and gave generous aid to the effort. The Tribune's columns were in a state of chronic congestion from a plethora of protests, both feminine and masculine. One young lawyer said: "If suffrage is to come, let it come by man's call, and not by woman's clamor"; and, "When all the women of the land can show the ability to rear a family, and at the same time become eminent in some profession or art, then men will gladly welcome them." Whereupon the women naturally rushed into print to protest against the qualifications required of them, compared with those required of men.
It is safe to say, that from the middle of January, 1877, until the following October, the most prominent theme of public discussion was this question of suffrage for women. Miners discussed it around their camp-fires, and "freighters" on their long slow journeys over the mountain trails argued pro and con, whether they should "let" women have the ballot. Women themselves argued and studied and worked earnestly. One lawyer's wife, who declared that no refined woman would contend for such a right, and that no woman with self-respect would be found electioneering, herself urged every man of her acquaintance to vote against the measure, and even triumphantly reported that she had spoken to seventy-five men who were strangers to her, and secured their promise to vote against the pending amendment. This, however, must not be mistaken for electioneering.
On Wednesday, August 15, an equal rights mass-meeting was held in Denver, for the purpose of organizing a county central committee, and for an informal discussion of plans for the campaign. Judge H. P. H. Bromwell and H. C. Dillon spoke, with earnest repetition of former pledges of devotion to the cause, and Gov. Evans said:
Equal suffrage is necessary to equal rights. It is fortunate that we have in Colorado an opportunity of bringing to bear the restraining, purifying and ennobling influence of women upon politics. It is a reform that will require all the benign influences of the country to sustain and carry out, and, as I hope for the perpetuation of our free institutions, I dare not neglect the most promising and potent means of purifying politics, and I regard the influence of women as this means.
Major Bright of Wyoming, was introduced as the man who framed and brought in the first bill for the enfranchisement of women. Judge W. B. Mills said: "It is an anomalous condition of affairs which made it necessary for a woman to ask a man whether she should vote," and referring to all the reforms and changes of the last half century, predicted that the extension of the franchise to woman would be the next in order.
The meeting was a full and fervid one, and great confidence of success was felt and expressed. A committee of seventeen was appointed[490] and this committee did its full duty in districting the territory and sending out speakers. Mr. Henry B. Blackwell, Lucy Stone and Miss Anthony arrived almost immediately after this, and henceforth the advocates of suffrage swarmed through the rocky highways and byways of Colorado as eagerly, if not as multitudinously, as its gold seekers. Mrs. Campbell wrote to the Woman's Journal:
We have now been at work two weeks. Some of our meetings are very encouraging, some not so much so. But the meetings are only one feature of the work. We stop along the way and search out all the leading men in each voting precinct, and secure the names of those who will work on election day. We do more talking out of meeting than in. We rode thirty-five miles yesterday, and arrived here after six o'clock in the evening. While Mr. Campbell was taking care of the horse, I filled out bills before taking off my hat and duster; in fifteen minutes they were being distributed, and at eight o'clock I was speaking to a good-sized audience.
On October 1, a monster meeting was held in the Lawrence street Methodist Church, and was addressed by Lucy Stone, Miss Matilda Hindman, Mrs. Campbell, and Dr. Avery. The most intense interest was manifested, and the excellent speeches heartily applauded.
The next day (Sunday) the Rev. Dr. Bliss of the Presbyterian Church, preached a sermon in his own pulpit, on "Woman Suffrage and the Model Wife and Mother," in which he alluded to "certain brawling, ranting women, bristling for their rights," and said God had intended woman to be a wife and mother, and the eternal fitness of things forbade her to be anything else. If women could vote, those who were wives now would live in endless bickerings with their husbands over politics, and those who were not wives would not marry."
These utterences brought out many replies. One was in the column edited by "Mrs. Schlachtfeld," and may perhaps be quoted as a specimen of her editorial work, such being, as we have intimated, her one service to suffrage, and that incognito:
One of the daily, dismal forecasts of the male Cassandras of our time is, that in the event of women becoming emancipated from the legal thralldom that disables them, they will acquire a sudden distaste for matrimony, the direful consequences of which will be a gradual extermination of homes, and the extinction of the human species. This is an artless and extremely suggestive lament. In the first place--accepting that prophecy as true--why will women not marry? Because, they will then be independent of men; because in a fair field for competition where ability and not sex shall determine employment and remuneration, women will have an equal chance with men for distinction and reward, for triumphs commercial and professional as well as social, and hence, needing men less, either to make them homes, or to gratify indirectly their ambitions, their affections will become atrophied, the springs of domestic life will disappear in the arid sands of an unfeminine publicity, and marriage, with all the wearying cares and burdens and anxieties that it inevitably brings to every earnest woman, will be regarded more and more as a state to be shunned. The few who enter it will be compassionated much as a minister is who undertakes a dangerous foreign mission. Men will stand mateless, and the ruins of the hymeneal altars everywhere crumble mournfully away, and be known to tradition only by their vanishing inscriptions: "To the unknown god." But it is ill jesting over that which tugs at every woman's heartstrings and which impinges upon the very life-centres of society. If women, on being made really free to choose, will not marry, then we must arraign men on the charge of having made the married state so irksome and distasteful to women that they prefer celibacy when they dare enjoy it. Observe, however, the inconsistency of another line of reasoning running parallel with this in the floating literature of the day: "Motherhood," these writers say, "is the natural vocation of women; is, indeed, an instinct so mighty, even if unconscious, that it draws women toward matrimony with a yearning as irresistible as that which pulls the great sea upon the land in blind response to the moon." If this be true, society is safe, and women will still be wives, no matter how much they may exult in political freedom, no matter how alluringly individual careers may open before them, nor how accessible the tempting prizes of human ambition may become.
Well, the day came,--the dies irae for one side or the other, and it proved to be for the "one." The measure was defeated. Ten thousand votes were for it, twenty thousand against it. Women remained at the polls all day, distributing ballots, and answering objections. They had flowers on all the little tables where the tickets were heaped, on which were printed the three words, "Woman Suffrage Approved," words for many pregnant with hope for a new impetus to civilization, for others with a misfortune only to be compared to that which happened in Greece when Ino boiled the seed corn of a whole kingdom, and thus not only lost the crop of that year, but, by the subtle interplay of the laws by which evolution proceeds, set back humanity for a period not to be reckoned in years. Mrs. H. S. Mendenhall of Georgetown wrote to Dr. Avery on the evening of election day:
Before this reaches you the telegraph will have given you the result of the day's work all over the State, but I thought I would jot down a line while the experiences of the last ten hours were fresh in my mind. Last evening our committee appointed ladies to represent the interests of woman suffrage at the polls. To my surprise, many evaded the work who were, nevertheless, strongly in favor of the measure. Mrs. Dr. Collins and I were the only ones at the lowest and most important precinct until one o'clock, when we were joined by the wife of the Presbyterian minister. Our course was somewhat as follows: On the approach of a voter, we would ask him, "have you voted?" If he had, we usually troubled him no further; if he had not, we asked, "Can you vote for woman suffrage?" If he approved, we supplied him with his ticket; if he disapproved, we asked him for his objections, and we have listened to some comical ones to-day. One man asked me, though not rudely, "Who is cooking your husband's dinner?" I promptly invited him to dine with us. Another spoke of neglected household duties, and when I mentioned a loaf of bread I had just baked, and should be glad to have him see, he said, "I expect you can bake bread," but he voted against us. The Methodist men were for us; the Presbyterians and Episcopalians very fairly so, and the Roman Catholics were not all against us, some of the prominent members of that church working and voting for woman suffrage. The liquor interest went entirely against us, as far as I know.
The observations of the day have led me to several general conclusions, to which, of course, exceptions exist: (1) Married men will vote for suffrage if their wives appreciate its importance. (2) Men without family ties, and especially if they have associated with a bad class of women, will vote against it. (3) Boys who have just reached their majority will vote against it more uniformly than any other class of men. We were treated with the utmost respect by all except the last class. Destitute of experience, and big with their own importance, these young sovereigns will speak to a woman twice their years with a flippancy which the most ignorant foreigner of mature age would not use, and I have to-day been tempted to believe that no one is fitted to exercise the American franchise under twenty-five years of age.
The main objection which I heard repeatedly urged was, women do not want to vote. This seems to be the great stumbling-block to our brethren. Men were continually saying that their wives told them not to vote for woman suffrage. If we are defeated this time I know we can succeed in the next campaign, or just as soon as we can educate enough prominent women up to the point of coming out plainly on the subject. Then all men, or all but the vicious men who always vote against every good thing, will give in right away.
Lucy Stone, in a letter to the Woman's Journal describes similar scenes enacted that day in Denver; speaks of the order and quiet prevailing at the polls, of the flowers on all the tables, and, in spite of the strangeness of the occasion, of the presence of women as evidently a new and beneficent element there. Rev. Dr. Ellis of the Baptist Church, who, on the Sunday before had preached from the text, "Help those Women," was using his influence to convert those doubtful or opposed. Rev. Mr. Bliss, who had declared in his pulpit that "the only two women the Bible mentioned as having meddled in politics were Jezebel and Herodias," was there also, to warn men not to vote for equal rights for women. At other polls I saw colored men, once slaves, electioneering and voting against the rights of women. When remonstrated with, one said: "We want the women at home cooking our dinners." A shrewd colored woman asked whether they had provided any dinner to cook, and added that most of the colored women there had to earn their dinner as well as cook it.
* * * * *
Hear the conclusion of the whole matter. In the words of the last editorial of the woman's column in the Rocky Mountain News:
Woman's hour has not yet struck! The chimes that were waiting to ring out the tidings of her liberty--the candles furtively stored against an illumination which should typify a new influx of light, the achievement of a victory whose meaning and promise at least seemed to those who both prayed and worked for it, neither trivial nor selfish--all these are relegated to the guardianship of Patience and Hope. Colorado has refused to enfranchise its women. * * * * * * The Germans, the Catholics, and the negroes were said to be against us. Naturally, those who themselves most keenly feel, or most recently have felt, the galling yoke of arbitrary rule, are most disposed to derive a certain enjoyment from the daily contemplation of a noble class still in bondage. * * * * * * But all opposition, in whatever guise, comes back at last to be written under one rubric--the immaturity of woman. We make this dispassionate statement of a fact. We feel neither scorn nor anger, and we trust that we shall excite none. It is a fault which time will cure, but meantime it is the grand factor in our account. Every other argument has been met--every other stronghold of opposition taken. Woman's claim to the ballot has been shown to rest in justice on the very foundation stone of democratic government--has been, from the Christian standpoint, as completely exonerated from the charge of impiety as ever anti-slavery and anti-polygamy were, and the fact which was the slogan of the anti-suffragists still remains: the mass of the women do not want it. We do not quarrel with the fact, but state it to give the real reason for our failures--the real objective point for our future work.
The complacency with which we are able to state without fear of contradiction that the body of intelligent and thoughtful women do want suffrage must not obscure our perception of the equal truth of what we have just stated above. To accept this verity and turn our energies toward the emancipation of our own sex--toward their emancipation from frivolous aims, petty prejudices, and that attitude toward the other sex which is really the sycophancy born of vanity and weakness; to make them recognize the State as a multiplication of their own families, and patriotism as the broadening of their love of home; to make them see that that mother will be most respected whose son does not, when a downy beard is grown, suddenly tower above her in the supercilious enjoyment of an artificial superiority--a superiority which consists simply, as Figaro says, in his having taken the trouble to be born; to make them see, finally, that in the highest exercise of all the powers with which God has endowed her, woman can no more refuse the duties of citizenship, than she can refuse the duties of wifehood and motherhood, once having accepted those sacred relations. This is our first duty, and this the scope of our work, if we would attain suffrage in 1879, or even in 1900.
FOOTNOTES:
[487] President, Alida C. Avery, M. D., Denver. Vice-Presidents, Rev. Mr. Harford, Denver; Mr. J. E. Washburn, Big Thompson; Mrs. H. M. Lee, Longmont; Mrs. M. M. Sheetz, Canon City; Mrs. L. S. Ruhn, Del Norte; Mr. N. C. Meeker, Greeley; Hon. Willard Teller, Central; Mr. D. M. Richards, Denver; Mr. J. B. Harrington, Littleton; Mr. A. E. Lee, Boulder; Rev. Wm. Shephard, Canon City. Recording Secretary, Miss Eunice D. Sewall, Denver. Corresponding Secretary, Mrs. A. L. Washburn, Big Thompson. Treasurer, Mrs. I. T. Hanna, Denver. Executive Committee, Mrs. M. F. Shields, Colorado Springs; Mr. A. L. Ellis, Boulder; Mrs. M. E. Hale, Denver; Mr. W. A. Wilkes, Colorado Springs; Mr. J. R. Hanna, Denver; Mrs. S. C. Wilber, Greeley; Rev. Dr. Crary, Pueblo.
[488] Of the membership of this committee a grateful word is to be said: Mrs. Campbell is a woman of agreeable and stately presence, and adds to thorough information on all points connected with the claims made in this campaign, an unusual facility and persuasiveness of language. Mrs. Shields is one of the most lovable women to be seen in the suffrage panorama; a tower of strength in her own family, where she is at once the comrade and commander of her children--the help-meet and friend of her husband. She inspires immediate confidence whenever she confronts an audience. Mrs. Washburn is also an attractive and large-hearted woman--a "Granger," and thus experienced in united, organized action of men and women for furthering the interests of both. Mrs. Hanna, a tall, graceful blonde, more reserved in speech but entirely intelligent in faith and in labor, represented to many men of the convention the very qualities they liked in their own wives.
[489] President, Dr. Alida C. Avery of Denver; Vice-Presidents, D. Howe, Mrs. M. B. Hart, J. E. Washburn, Mrs. Emma Moody, Willard Teller, J. B. Harrington, A. E. Lee, and N. C. Meeker; _Recording Secretary_, Birks Carnforth of Denver; Corresponding Secretary, Mrs. T. M. Patterson of Denver; Treasurer, Mrs. H. C. Lawson of Denver; Executive Committee, D. M. Richards, Mrs. M. F. Shields, Mrs. M. E. Hale, H. McAllister, Mrs. Birks Carnforth, J. A. Dresser, A. J. Wilber, B. F. Crary, Miss Annie Figg, H. Logan, J. R. Eads, F. M. Ellis, C. Roby, Judge Jones, General Cameron, B. H. Eaton, Agapita Vigil, W. B. Felton, S. C. Charles and J. B. Campbell.
[490] Consisting of Dr. R. G. Buckingham, chairman, Hon. John Evans, Judge G. W. Miller, Benjamin D. Spencer, A. J. Williams, Captain Richard Sopris, E. B. Sluth, John Armor, Hon. E. L. Campbell, John Walker, J. U. Marlow, Col. W. H. Bright, John G. Lilly, John S. McCool, J. W. Nesmyth, Henry O. Wagoner, and Dr. Martimore.
LII. WYOMING
The Dawn of the New Day, December, 1869--The Goal Reached in England and America--Territory Organized, May, 1869--Legislative Action--Bill for Woman Suffrage--William H. Bright--Gov. Campbell Signs the Bill--Appoints Esther Morris, Justice of the Peace, March, 1870--Women on the Jury, Chief-Justice Howe, Presiding--J. W. Kingman, Associate-Justice, Addresses the Jury--Women Promptly take their Places--Sunday Laws Enforced--Comments of the Press--Judge Howe's Letter--Laramie Sentinel--J. H. Heyford--Women Voting, 1870--Grandma Swain the First to Cast her Ballot--Effort to Repeal the Law, 1871--Gov. Campbell's Veto--Mr. Corlett--Rapid Growth of Public Opinion in Favor of Woman Suffrage.
After recording such a long succession of disappointments and humiliations for women in all the States in their worthy endeavors for higher education, for profitable employment in the trades and professions and for equal social, civil and political rights, it is with renewed self-respect and a stronger hope of better days to come that we turn to the magnificent territory of Wyoming, where the foundations of the first true republic were laid deep and strong in equal rights to all, and where for the first time in the history of the race woman has been recognized as a sovereign in her own right--an independent, responsible being--endowed with the capacity for self-government. This great event in the history of human progress transpired in 1869.
Neither the point nor the period for this experiment could have been more fitly chosen. Midway across this vast western continent, on the highest plane of land, rising from three to eight thousand feet above the level of the sea, where gigantic mountain-peaks shooting still higher seem to touch the clouds, while at their feet flow the great rivers that traverse the State in all directions, emptying themselves after weary wanderings into the Pacific ocean at last; such was the grand point where woman was first crowned with the rights of citizenship. And the period was equally marked. To reach the goal of self-government the women of England and America seemed to be vieing with each other in the race, now one holding the advance position, now the other. And in many respects their struggles and failures were similar. When seeking the advantages of collegiate education, the women of England were compelled to go to France, Austria and Switzerland for the opportunities they could not enjoy in their own country. The women of our Eastern States followed their example, or went to Western institutions for such privileges, granted by Oberlin and Antioch in Ohio, Ann Arbor in Michigan, Washington University in Missouri, and refused in all the colleges of the East. For long years, alike they endured ridicule and bitter persecution to secure a foothold in their universities at home.
Our battles in Parliament and in the Congress of the United States were simultaneous. While nine senators,[491] staunch and true, voted in favor of woman suffrage in 1866, and women were rolling up their petitions for a constitutional amendment in '68 and '69, with Samuel C. Pomeroy in the Senate and George W. Julian in the House, the women of England, keeping step and time, found their champions in the House of Commons in John Stuart Mill and Jacob Bright in 1867-69, and no sooner were their mammoth petitions presented in parliament than ours were rolled into the halls of congress. At last we reached the goal, the women of England in 1869 and those of Wyoming in 1870. But what the former gained in time the latter far surpassed in privilege. While to the English woman only a limited suffrage was accorded, in the vast territory of Wyoming, larger than all Great Britain, all the rights of citizenship were fully and freely conferred by one act of the legislature--the right to vote at all elections on all questions and to hold any office in the gift of the people.
The successive steps by which this was accomplished are given us by Hon. J. W. Kingman, associate-justice in the territory for several years:
It is now sixteen years since the act was passed giving women the right to vote at all elections in this territory, including all the rights of an elector, with the right to hold office. The language of the statute is broad, and beyond the reach of evasion. It is as follows:
That every woman of the age of twenty-one years, residing in the territory, may, at every election to be holden under the laws thereof, cast her vote; and her rights to the elective franchise, and to hold office, shall be the same, under the election laws of the territory, as those of the electors.
There was no half-way work about it, no quibbling, no grudgingly parting with political power, no fear of consequences, but a manly acknowledgment of equal rights and equal privileges, among all the citizens of the new territory. Nor was this the only act of that first legislature on the subject of equal rights. They passed the following:
AN ACT to protect married women in their separate property, and the enjoyment of their labor.
SECTION 1. That all the property, both real and personal, belonging to any married woman as her sole and separate property, or which any woman hereafter married, owns at the time of her marriage, or which any married woman during coverture acquires in good faith from any person other than her husband, by descent or otherwise, together with all the rents, issues, increase and profits thereof, shall, notwithstanding her marriage, be and remain during coverture, her sole and separate property, under her sole control, and be held, owned, possessed and enjoyed by her, the same as though she were sole and unmarried, and shall not be subject to the disposal, control or interference of her husband, and shall be exempt from execution or attachment for the debts of her husband.
SEC. 2. Any married woman may bargain, sell, and convey, her personal property, and enter into any contract in reference to the same, as if she were sole.
SEC. 3. Any woman may, while married, sue and be sued in all matters having relation to her property, person or reputation, in the same manner as if she were sole.
SEC. 4. Any married woman may, while married, make a will the same as though she were sole.
SEC. 5. Any married woman may carry on any trade or business, and perform any labor or service on her sole and separate account, and the earnings of any married woman from her trade, business, labor or services, shall be her sole and separate property, and may be used and invested by her in her own name; and she may sue and be sued, as if sole, in regard to her trade, business, labor, services, and earnings. * * *
SEC. 9. The separate deed of the husband shall convey no interest in the wife's lands.
Under the statute for distributions, the wife is treated exactly as the husband is; each having the same right in the estate of the other. The provisions are so unusual and peculiar, that I venture to copy some of them:
* * * * If such intestate leave a husband or wife, and children, him or her surviving, one-half of such estate shall descend to such surviving husband or wife, and the residue thereof * * * * to the children; if such intestate leave a husband or wife and no child, * * * * then the property shall descend as follows, to wit: three-fourths thereof to such remaining husband or wife, and one-fourth thereof to the father and mother of the intestate, or the survivor of them; provided that if the estate of such intestate, real and personal, does not exceed in volume the sum of ten thousand dollars, then the whole thereof shall descend to and rest in the surviving husband or wife as his or her absolute estate. Dower and the tenancy by the curtesy are abolished.
The school law also provides:
SEC. 9. In the employment of teachers no discrimination shall be made, in the question of pay, on account of sex, when the persons are equally qualified.
Such are some of the radical enactments of the first legislature of Wyoming territory in reference to woman's rights; and to a person who has grown up under the common law and the usages of English-speaking people, they undoubtedly appear extravagant if not revolutionary, and well calculated to disturb or overthrow the very foundations of social order. Experience has not, however, justified any such apprehensions. The people of Wyoming have prospered under these laws, and are growing to like them better and better, and adapt themselves more and more to their provisions. The object of this sketch is to trace the progress and development of this new legislation, and gather up some of its consequences as they have been observed in our social and political relations.
The territory of Wyoming was first organized in May, 1869. The Union Pacific railroad was completed on the 9th of the month, and the transcontinental route opened to the public. There were but few people in the territory at that time, except such as had been brought hither in connection with the building of that road, and while some of them were good people, well-educated, and came to stay, many were reckless, wicked and wandering. The first election was held in September, 1869, for the election of a delegate in congress, and members of the Council and House of Representatives for the first territorial legislature. There was a good deal of party feeling developed, and election day witnessed a sharp and vigorous struggle. The candidates and their friends spent money freely, and every liquor shop was thrown open to all who would drink. I was about to say that any one could imagine the consequences; but in fact I do not believe that any one could picture to himself the mad follies, and frightful scenes of that drunken election. Peaceful people did not dare to walk the streets, in some of the towns, during the latter part of the day and evening. At South Pass City, some drunken fellows with large knives and loaded revolvers swaggered around the polls, and swore that no negro should vote. One man remarked quietly that he thought the negroes had as good a right to vote as any of them had. He was immediately knocked down, jumped on, kicked and pounded without mercy, and would have been killed, had not his friends rushed into the brutal crowd and dragged him out, bloody and insensible. It was a long time before the poor fellow recovered from his injuries. There were quite a number of colored men who wanted to vote, but did not dare approach the polls until the United States Marshal placed himself at their head and with revolver in hand escorted them through the crowd, saying he would shoot the first man that interfered with them. There was much quarreling and tumult, but the negroes voted. This was only a sample of the day's doings, and characteristic of the election all over the territory. The result was that every Republican was defeated, and every Democratic candidate elected; and the whisky shops had shown themselves to be the ruling power in Wyoming. From such an inspiration one could hardly expect a revelation of much value! Yet there were some fair men among those elected.
The legislature met October 12, 1869. Wm. H. Bright was elected president of the Council. As he was the author of the woman suffrage bill, and did more than all others to secure its passage, some account of him may be of interest. He was a man of much energy and of good natural endowments, but entirely without school education. He said frankly, "I have never been to school a day in my life, and where I learned to read and write I do not know." His character was not above reproach, but he had an excellent, well-informed wife, and he was a kind, indulgent husband. In fact, he venerated his wife, and submitted to her judgment and influence more willingly than one could have supposed; and she was in favor of woman suffrage.[492] There were a few other men in that legislature, whose wives exercised a similar influence; but Mr. Bright found it up-hill work to get a majority for his bill, and it dragged along until near the close of the session. The character of the arguments he used, and the means he employed to win success are perhaps worthy of notice, as showing the men he had to deal with. I ought to say distinctly, that Mr. Bright was himself fully and firmly convinced of the justice and policy of his bill, and gave his whole energy and influence to secure its passage; he secured some members by arguing to support their pet schemes in return, and some he won over by even less creditable means. He got some votes by admitting that the governor would veto the bill (and it was generally understood that he would), insisting at the same time, that it would give the Democrats an advantage in future elections by showing that they were in favor of liberal measures while the Republican governor and the Republican party were opposed to them. The favorite argument, however, and by far the most effective, was this: it would prove a great advertisement, would make a great deal of talk, and attract attention to the legislature, and the territory, more effectually than anything else. The bill was finally passed and sent to the governor. I must add, however, that many letters were written from different parts of the territory, and particularly by the women, to members of the legislature, urging its passage and approving its object.
On receipt of the bill, the governor was in great doubt what course to take. He was inclined to veto it, and had so expressed himself; but he did not like to take the responsibility of offending the women in the territory, or of placing the Republican party in open hostility to a measure which he saw might become of political force and importance. I remember well an interview that Chief-Justice Howe and myself had with him at that time, in which we discussed the policy of the bill, and both of us urged him to sign it with all the arguments we could command. After a protracted consultation we left him still doubtful what he would do.[493] But in the end he signed it, and drew upon himself the bitter curses of those Democrats who had voted for the bill with the expectation that he would veto it. From this time onward, the measure became rather a Republican than a Democratic principle, and found more of its friends in the former party, and more of its enemies in the latter.
Soon after the passage of the bill, a vacancy occurred in the office of justice of the peace, at South Pass City, the county seat of Sweetwater county, and the home of Mr. Bright and of Mrs. Esther Morris. At the request of the county attorney--who favored woman suffrage--the commissioners, two of whom also approved of it, appointed Mrs. Morris to fill the vacancy. The legislature had vested the appointment of officers, in case of a vacancy, in the county commissioners, but the organic act of congress, creating the territory, provided that the governor "shall commission all officers who shall be appointed under the laws of said territory." Governor Campbell being absent from the territory at the time, the secretary, acting as governor, sent Mrs. Morris her commission. It is due to Secretary Lee to say that he was an earnest advocate of woman's enfranchisement, and labored for the passage of the bill, and gladly embraced the opportunity to confirm a woman in office. The important fact is, however, that Mrs. Morris' neighbors first suggested the appointment that secured her the office, and manfully sustained her during her whole term. She tried between thirty and forty cases, and decided them so acceptably that not one of them was appealed to a higher court; and I know of no one who has held the office of justice of the peace in this territory, who has left a more acceptable record, in all respects, than has Mrs. Esther Morris. Some other appointments of women to office were made, but I do not find that any of them entered upon its duties.
The first term of the District Court, under the statutes passed by the first legislature, was to be held at Laramie City, on the first Monday of March, 1870. When the jurors were drawn, a large number of women were selected, for both grand and petit jurors. As this was not done by the friends of woman suffrage, there was evidently an intention of making the whole subject odious and ridiculous, and giving it a death-blow at the outset. A great deal of feeling was excited among the people, and some effort made to prejudice the women against acting as jurors, and even threats, ridicule and abuse, in some cases, were indulged in. Their husbands were more pestered and badgered than the women, and some of them were so much inflamed that they declared they would never live with their wives again if they served on the jury. The fact that women were drawn as jurors was telegraphed all over the country, and the newspapers came loaded with hostile and uncomplimentary criticisms. At this stage of the case Col. Downey, the prosecuting attorney for the county, wrote to Judge Howe for advice and direction as to the eligibility of the women as jurors, and what course should be taken in the premises. At first Judge Howe was much inclined to order the women discharged, and new juries drawn; and it certainly required no small amount of moral courage to face the storm of ridicule and abuse that was blowing from all quarters. We had a long consultation, and came to the conclusion that since the law had clearly given all the rights of electors to the women of the territory, they must be protected in the exercise of these rights if they chose to assume them; that under no circumstances could the judges permit popular clamor to deprive the women of their legal rights in the very presence of the courts themselves. The result was that Judge Howe wrote the county attorney the following letter:
CHEYENNE, March 3, 1870.
S. W. DOWNEY--My Dear Sir: I have your favor of yesterday, and have carefully considered the question of the eligibility of women who are "citizens," to serve on juries. Mr. Justice Kingman has also considered the question, and we concur in the opinion that such women are eligible. My reason for this opinion will be given at length, if occasion requires. I will thank you to make it known to those ladies who have been summoned on the juries, that they will be received, protected, and treated with all the respect and courtesy due, and ever paid, by true American gentlemen to true American ladies, and that the Court, in all the power of government, will secure to them all that deference, security from insult, or anything which ought to offend the most refined woman, which is accorded in any walks of life in which the good and true women of our country have heretofore been accustomed to move. Thus, whatever may have been, or may now be thought of the policy of admitting women to the right of suffrage and to hold office, they will have a fair opportunity, at least in my Court, to demonstrate their ability in this new field, and prove the policy or impolicy of occupying it. Of their right to try it I have no doubt. I hope they will succeed, and the Court will certainly aid them in all lawful and proper ways. Very respectfully,
J. H. HOWE, Chief-Justice.
When the time came to hold the court, Judge Howe, whose duty it was to preside, requested me to go with him to Laramie City, and sit with him during the term. I gladly availed myself of the opportunity. As soon as we arrived there, Judge Howe was waited on by a number of gentlemen who endeavored to induce him to order the discharge of the female jurors without calling them into court. Some spoke of the impolicy of the proceeding, and said the women all objected to it and wished to be excused; while some were cross, and demanded the discharge of their wives, saying that it was an intentional insult and they would not submit to it. But Judge Howe told them all firmly, that the women must come into court, and if, after the whole question was fairly explained to them, they chose to decline, they should be excused. At the opening of the court next morning, the house was crowded, and the female jurors were all there. After the usual preliminaries, an attorney arose and moved that all the women summoned as jurors be excused, saying he made the motion at the request of the women themselves; and that he was assured they did not wish to serve. Judge Howe then requested me to express my opinion and make some remarks to the women on the duties devolving on them. I said:
It was a real pleasure to me to see ladies in the court-room, with the right to take a responsible part in the proceedings, as grand and petit jurors; that no one knew so well as they did, the evils our community suffered from lawless and wicked people; and no one better understood the difficulties the court labored under in its efforts to administer justice and punish crime; that the time had come when the good women of the territory could give us substantial aid, and we looked to them especially, as the power which should make the court efficient in the discharge of its duties; that the new law had conferred on them important rights, and corresponding duties necessarily devolved upon them; that I hoped and believed they would not shrink when so many influences were calling on them for noble and worthy action; that if they failed us now, the cause of equal rights would suffer at their hands, not only in our territory, but in every land where its advocates were struggling for its recognition; that if they would remain, their presence would secure a degree of decorum in the court-room and add a dignity to the proceedings, which the judges had been unable to command; that we required the assistance of good women all over the territory, and I begged them to help us.
Judge Howe then spoke as follows:
It is an innovation and a great novelty to see, as we do to-day, ladies summoned to serve as jurors. The extension of political rights and franchise to women is a subject that is agitating the whole country. I have never taken an active part in these discussions, but I have long seen that woman is a victim to the vices, crimes and immoralities of man, with no power to protect and defend herself from these evils. I have long felt that such powers of protection should be conferred upon woman, and it has fallen to our lot here to act as the pioneers in the movement and to test the question. The eyes of the whole world are to-day fixed upon this jury of Albany county. There is not the slightest impropriety in any lady occupying this position, and I wish to assure you that the fullest protection of the court shall be accorded to you. It would be a most shameful scandal that in our temple of justice and in our courts of law, anything should be permitted which the most sensitive lady might not hear with propriety and witness. And here let me add that it will be a sorry day for any man who shall so far forget the courtesy due and paid by every American gentleman to every American lady as to ever by word or act endeavor to deter you from the exercise of those rights with which the law has invested you. I conclude with the remark that this is a question for you to decide for yourselves. No man has any right to interfere. It seems to me to be eminently proper for women to sit upon grand juries, which will give them the best possible opportunities to aid in suppressing the dens of infamy which curse the country. I shall be glad of your assistance in the accomplishment of this object. I do not make these remarks from distrust of any of the gentlemen. On the contrary, I am exceedingly pleased and gratified with the indication of intelligence, love of law and good order, and the gentlemanly deportment which I see manifested here.
The ladies were then told that those who could not conveniently serve, and those who insisted on being excused, might rise and they should be discharged. Only one rose and she was excused. But a victory had been won of no small moment. Seeing the earnestness of the judges and the dignified character they had given to the affair, the women were encouraged and pleased, and the enemies of equal rights, who had planned, as they thought, a stunning blow to further progress, were silenced and defeated. The current set rapidly in the other direction and applause, as usual, followed success. The business of the court proceeded with marked improvement. The court-room, always crowded, was quiet and decorous in the extreme. The bar in particular was always on its good behavior, and wrangling, abuse and buncome speeches were not heard. When men moved about they walked quietly, on tip-toe, so as to make no noise, and forbore to whisper or make any demonstrations in or around the court-room. The women when called took their chairs in the jury-box with the men, as they do their seats in church,[494] and no annoyance or reluctance was visible from the bench. They gave close and intelligent attention to the details of every case, and the men who sat with them evidently acted with more conscientious care than usual. The verdicts were generally satisfactory, except to convicted criminals. They did not convict every one they tried, but "no guilty man escaped," if there was sufficient evidence to hold him. The lawyers soon found out that the usual tricks and subterfuges in criminal cases would not procure acquittal, and they began to challenge off all the women called. The court checkmated this move by directing the sheriff to summon other women in their places, instead of men, and then came motions for continuances. The result was a great success and was so acknowledged by all disinterested persons. On the grand jury were six women and nine men, and they became such a terror to evil-doers that a stampede began among them and very many left the town forever. Certainly there was never more fearless or efficient work performed by a grand jury.
The legislature copied most of the statutes which it enacted from the laws of Nebraska, and among others the following clauses in the crimes act, to wit.:
If any person shall keep open any tippling or gaming-house on the Sabbath day or night, * * * he shall be fined not exceeding one hundred dollars, or imprisoned in the county jail not exceeding six months.
Any person who shall hereafter knowingly disturb the peace and good order of society by labor on the first day of the week, commonly called Sunday (works of necessity and charity excepted), shall be fined, on conviction thereof, in any sum not exceeding fifty dollars.
No attention whatever had been paid to these statutes, and Sunday was generally the great drinking day of the whole week; the saloons sold more whiskey and made more money that day than any other. The women on that grand jury determined to put a stop to it and enforce these laws. They therefore indicted every liquor saloon in town. This made a great outcry, not only among the liquor-sellers but among their customers also. They were all arrested, brought into court and gave bail; but Judge Howe told them as this was a new law recently passed, and as it was quite probable that most of them were ignorant of its provisions, he would continue the cases with this express understanding, that if they would strictly obey the law in future these cases should be dismissed; but if any of them violated it, these cases would be tried and the full penalty inflicted. They all agreed to this, and the "Sunday Law," as it was called, was carefully observed afterwards in Laramie City; and so great has been the change in that town in the habits of the people and the quiet appearance of the streets on Sunday, as compared with other towns in the territory, that it has been nick-named the "Puritan town" of Wyoming, and, I may add, rejoices in its singularity.
And how was this most successful experiment in equal rights received and treated by the press and the people out of the territory? The New York illustrated papers made themselves funny with caricatures of female juries, and cheap scribblers invented all sorts of scandals and misrepresentations about them. The newspapers were overflowing with abuse and adverse criticism, and only here and there was a manly voice heard in apology or defense. I copy these extracts as a sample of the rest.
"LADY JURORS."--Under this head the New Orleans Times, the ablest and largest paper in the South, said:
Confusion is becoming worse confounded by the hurried march of events. Mad theorizings take the form of every-day realities, and in the confusion of rights and the confusion of dress, all distinctions of sex are threatened with swift obliteration. When Anna Dickinson holds forth as the teacher of strange doctrines in which the masculinity of woman is preposterously asserted as a true warrant for equality with man in all his political and industrial relations; when Susan B. Anthony flashes defiance from lips and eyes which refuse the blandishment and soft dalliance that in the past have been so potent with "the sex"; when, in fine, the women of Wyoming are called from their domestic firesides to serve as jurors in a court of justice, a question of the day, and one, too, of the strangest kind, is forced on our attention. From a careful review of all the surroundings, we think the Wyoming experiment will lead to beneficial results. By proving that lady jurors are altogether impracticable--that they cannot sit as the peers of men without setting at defiance all the laws of delicacy and propriety--the conclusion may be reached that it will be far better to let nature alone in regulating the relations of the sexes.
The Philadelphia Press had the following:
WOMEN AS JURORS.--Now one of the adjuncts of female citizenship is about to be tested in Wyoming. Eleven women have been drawn as jurors to serve at the March term of the Albany County Court. It is stated that immense excitement has been created thereby, but the nature of the aforesaid excitement does not transpire. Will women revolutionize justice? What is female justice, or what is it likely to be? Would twelve women return the same verdict as twelve men, supposing that each twelve had heard the same case? Is it possible for a jury of women, carrying with them all their sensitiveness, sympathies, predilections, jealousies, prejudices, hatreds, to reach an impartial verdict? Would not every criminal be a monster, provided not a female? Can the sex, ordinarily so quick to pronounce pre-judgments, divest itself of them sufficiently to enter the jury-box with unbiased minds? Perhaps it were best to trust the answer to events. Women may learn to be jurymen, but in so doing they have a great deal to learn.
So persistent were the attacks and so malignant were the perversions of truth that Judge Howe, at the request of the editor, wrote the following letter for publication anonymously in the Chicago Legal News, every statement in which I can confirm from my own observation. The Judge, after writing the letter, consented to its publication over his own signature:
CHEYENNE, Wyoming, April 4, 1870.
Mrs. Myra Bradwell, Chicago, Ill.:
DEAR MADAM: I am in receipt of your favor of March 26, in which you request me to "give you a truthful statement, over my own signature, for publication in your paper, of the history of, and my observations in regard to, women as grand and petit jurors in Wyoming." I will comply with your request, with this qualification, that it be not published over my own signature, as I do not covet newspaper publicity, and have already, without any agency or fault of my own, been subjected to an amount of it which I never anticipated nor conceived of, and which has been far from agreeable to me.
I had no agency in the enactment of the law in Wyoming conferring legal equality upon women. I found it upon the statute-book of that territory, and in accordance with its provisions several women were legally drawn by the proper officers on the grand and petit juries of Albany county, and were duly summoned by the sheriff without any agency of mine. On being apprised of these facts, I conceived it to be my plain duty to fairly enforce this law, as I would any other; and more than this, I resolved at once that, as it had fallen to my lot to have the experiment tried under my administration, it should have a fair trial, and I therefore assured these women that they could serve or not, as they chose; that if they chose to serve, the Court would secure to them the most respectful consideration and deference, and protect them from insult in word or gesture, and from everything which might offend a modest and virtuous woman in any of the walks of life in which the good and true women of our country have been accustomed to move.
While I had never been an advocate for the law, I felt that thousands of good men and women had been, and that they had a right to see it fairly administered; and I was resolved that it should not be sneered down if I had to employ the whole power of the court to prevent it. I felt that even those who were opposed to the policy of admitting women to the right of suffrage and to hold office would condemn me if I did not do this. It was also sufficient for me that my own judgment approved this course.
With such assurances these women chose to serve and were duly impanelled as jurors. They were educated, cultivated eastern ladies, who are an honor to their sex. They have, with true womanly devotion, left their homes of comfort in the States to share the fortunes of their husbands and brothers in the far West and to aid them in founding a new State beyond the Missouri.
And now as to the results. With all my prejudices against the policy, I am under conscientious obligations to say that these women acquitted themselves with such dignity, decorum, propriety of conduct and intelligence as to win the admiration of every fair-minded citizen of Wyoming. They were careful, pains-taking, intelligent and conscientious. They were firm and resolute for the right as established by the law and the testimony. Their verdicts were right, and, after three or four criminal trials, the lawyers engaged in defending persons accused of crime began to avail themselves of the right of peremptory challenge to get rid of the female jurors, who were too much in favor of enforcing the laws and punishing crime to suit the interests of their clients. After the grand jury had been in session two days, the dance-house keepers, gamblers and demi-monde fled out of the city in dismay, to escape the indictment of women grand jurors! In short I have never, in twenty-five years of constant experience in the courts of the country, seen more faithful, intelligent and resolutely honest grand and petit juries than these.
A contemptibly lying and silly dispatch went over the wires to the effect that during the trial of A. W. Howie for homicide (in which the jury consisted of six women and six men) the men and women were kept locked up together all night for four nights. Only two nights intervened during the trial, and on these nights, by my order, the jury was taken to the parlor of the large, commodious and well-furnished hotel of the Union Pacific Railroad, in charge of the sheriff and a woman bailiff, where they were supplied with meals and every comfort, and at 10 o'clock the women were conducted by the bailiff to a large and suitable apartment where beds were prepared for them, and the men to another adjoining, where beds were prepared for them, and where they remained in charge of sworn officers until morning, when they were again all conducted to the parlor and from thence in a body to breakfast, and thence to the jury-room, which was a clean and comfortable one, carpeted and heated, and furnished with all proper conveniences.
The cause was submitted to the jury for their decision about 11 o'clock in the forenoon, and they agreed upon their verdict, which was received by the court between 11 and 12 o'clock at night of the same day, when they were discharged.
Everybody commended the conduct of this jury and was satisfied with the verdict, except the individual who was convicted of murder in the second degree. The presence of these ladies in court secured the most perfect decorum and propriety of conduct, and the gentlemen of the bar and others vied with each other in their courteous and respectful demeanor toward the ladies and the court. Nothing occurred to offend the most refined lady (if she was a sensible lady) and the universal judgment of every intelligent and fair-minded man present was and is, that the experiment was a success.
I dislike the notoriety this matter has given me, but I do not shrink from it. I never sought it nor expected it, and have only performed what I regarded as a plain duty, neither seeking nor desiring any praise, and quite indifferent to any censure or criticism which my conduct may have invoked.
Thanking you for your friendly and complimentary expressions, I am very respectfully yours,
J. H. HOWE.
As showing how the matter was received at home, in Laramie City, I copy the following from the Laramie Sentinel of April 7, 1870:
If we should neglect to give some idea of the results of our jury experiment, the world would say we were afraid or ashamed of it. For our own part we are inclined to admit that it succeeded beyond all our expectations. We naturally wished it to succeed; still we scarcely wished it to demonstrate a theory that women were better qualified for these duties than men. Hence, when Chief-Justice Howe said, "In eighteen years' experience I have never had as fair, candid, impartial and able a jury in court, as in this term in Albany county," and when Associate-Justice Kingman said, "For twenty-five years it has been an anxious study with me, both on the bench and at the bar, how we are to prevent jury trials from degenerating into a perfect burlesque, and it has remained for Albany county to point out the remedy and demonstrate the cure for this threatened evil," we confess to having been more than satisfied with the result. It may be safely stated as the unanimous verdict of bench, bar and public opinion, that the jurors of Albany county did well and faithfully discharge their duties, with honor and credit to themselves and to the satisfaction of the public.
Among the few exceptions to the general abuse of the press, the following from the Cincinnati Gazette of April 14, 1870, is well worth preserving:
Now, in the name of the inalienable right of every person to the pursuit of happiness, we have to ask: Are not these women competent to decide for themselves whether their households, their children or their husbands are of more importance than their public duties? And having the best means for deciding this question, have they not the right to decide? Who has the right to pick out the females of a jury and challenge them with the question whether they are not neglecting their households or their husbands? Who challenges a male juror and demands whether he left his family well provided, and his wife well cherished? or if, through his detention in court, the cupboard will be bare, the wife neglected, or the children with holes in their trousers? This is simply the crack of the familiar whip of man's absolute domination over women. It means nothing short of their complete subjection. Not to use rights is to abandon them. There are inconveniences and cares in all possessions; but who argues that therefore they should be abandoned? It would much promote the convenience of man if he would let his political rights and duties be performed by a few willing persons; but he would soon find that he had no rights left.
And what is this family impediment which is thus set up as a female disability? The family obligation is just as strong in man as in woman. It is much stronger, for the manners which compel woman to be the passive waiter on the male providence leave to him the real responsibility. Yet many men forego marriage and homes and children, and nobody imagines that it disqualifies them for public duties. Nobody challenges them as jurors, and demands if they have discharged the family obligation. Rather it is held wise in them to give themselves wholly to their pursuits, without the distraction of conjugal joys, until they have achieved success. Why should the family requirement, which man throws off so easily, be made a yoke for woman? There is something more fundamental than nursing babies or coddling the appetites of husbands. The sentiment, "Give me liberty, or give me death," is the American instinct. Breathes there a woman with soul so dead that she would bring forth slaves? Babes had better not be born if they are not to have their rights. It is the duty of women to first provide the state of freedom for their progeny. Then they may consent to become wives and mothers. Liberty and the exercise of all political rights are so bound together, that to neglect one is to abandon all. Trial by a jury of one's peers is the essential principle of the administration of justice. To be a peer on a jury involves the whole principle of equal rights. To abandon this to man, is to accept subjection to man.
For women to neglect jury duty is to give men the exclusive privilege to judge women, and to abandon the right to be tried by a jury of their peers. How can men justly judge a woman? They cannot have that knowledge of her peculiar physical and mental organization which is requisite to the judgment of motives and temptations. They cannot comprehend the variable moods and emotions, nor the power of her impulses. It is monstrous injustice to judge women by the same rules as men. And men lack that intuitive charity and tender sympathy which women always feel for an exposed, erring sister. Furthermore, many of the crimes of men are against women. How can men appreciate their injury? That which is her ruin, they call, as Anna Dickinson says, sowing their wild oats. How can justice be expected from those who instinctively combine to preserve their privilege to abuse women? For the administration of justice to women who are accused, and to men who have wronged women, judges and jurors of their own sex are indispensable.
As long as Judge Howe remained on the bench he had women on his juries.[495] His first term at Cheyenne, after the law was passed, several women were among the jurors, and they did fully as well, and exerted quite as good an influence there, as the women had recently at Laramie City.
The first election under the woman suffrage law was held in September 1870, for the election of a delegate in congress, and county officers. There was an exciting canvass, and both parties applied to the whisky shops, as before, supposing they would wield the political power of the territory, and that not enough women would vote to influence the result. The morning of election came, but did not bring the usual scenes around the polls. A few women came out early to vote, and the crowd kept entirely out of sight. There was plenty of drinking and noise at the saloons, but the men would not remain, after voting, around the polls. It seemed more like Sunday than election day. Even the negro men and women voted without objection or disturbance. Quite a number of women voted during the day, at least in all the larger towns, but apprehension of a repetition of the scenes of the former election, and doubt as to the proper course for them to pursue, kept very many from voting. The result was a great disappointment all around. The election had passed off with unexpected quiet, and order had everywhere prevailed. The whisky shops had been beaten, and their favorite candidate for congress, although he had spent several thousand dollars to secure an election, was left out in the cold. I cannot deny myself the pleasure of quoting at length the following letter of the Rev. D. J. Pierce, at that time a resident of Laramie City, and a very wealthy man, to show the powerful influence that was exerted on the mind of a New England clergyman by that first exhibition of women at the polls, and as evidence of the singular and beneficial change in the character of the election, and the conduct of the men:
Editor Laramie Sentinel: I am pleased to notice your action in printing testimonials of different classes to the influence of woman suffrage in Wyoming. With the apathy of conservatism and prejudice of party spirit arrayed against the idea in America, it is the duty of the residents in Wyoming to note the simple facts of their noted experiment, and lay them before the world for its consideration. I came from the vicinity of Boston, arriving in Laramie two weeks before the first regular election of 1870. I had never sympathized with the extreme theories of the woman's rights platform, to the advocates of which I had often listened in Boston. But I had never been able to learn just why a woman is naturally excluded from the privilege of franchise, and I sometimes argued in favor in lyceum debates. Still the question of her degradation stared me in the face, and I came to Wyoming unsettled in the matter, determined to be an impartial judge. I was early at the polls, but too late to witness the polling of the first female vote--by "Grandma" Swain, a much-esteemed Quaker lady of 75 summers, who determined by her words and influence to rally her sex to defend the cause of morality and justice.
I saw the rough mountaineers maintaining the most respectful decorum whenever the women approached the polls, and heard the timely warning of one of the leading canvassers as he silenced an incipient quarrel with uplifted finger, saying, "Hist! Be quiet! A woman is coming!"
And I was compelled to allow that in this new country, supposed at that time to be infested by hordes of cut-throats, gamblers and abandoned characters, I had witnessed a more quiet election than it had been my fortune to see in the quiet towns of Vermont. I saw ladies attended by their husbands, brothers, or sweethearts, ride to the places of voting, and alight in the midst of a silent crowd, and pass through an open space to the polls, depositing their votes with no more exposure to insult or injury than they would expect on visiting a grocery store or meat-market. Indeed, they were much safer here, every man of their party was pledged to shield them, while every member of the other party feared the influence of any signs of disrespect.
And the next day I sent my impressions to an eastern paper, declaring myself convinced that woman's presence at the polls would elevate the tone of public sentiment there as it does in churches, the social hall, or any other place, while her own robes are unspotted by the transient association with evil characters which she is daily obliged to meet in the street or dry-goods store. My observation at subsequent annual elections has only confirmed my opinion in this respect.
Without reference to party issues, I noticed that a majority of women voted for men of the most temperate habits, thus insuring success to the party of law and order.
After three years' absence from my old home, I could not fail to notice in the elections of 1877 and 1878 that both parties had been led to nominate men of better standing in moral character, in order to secure the female vote.
I confess that I believe in the idea of aristocracy--i. e. "the rule of the best ones"--not by blood or position, but the aristocracy of character, to which our laws point when they declare that prison characters shall not vote.
The ballot of any community cannot rise above its character. A town full of abandoned women would be cursed by the application of woman suffrage.
We need to intrust our State interests to the class most noted for true character. As a class, women are more moral and upright in their character than men. Hence America would profit by their voting.
D. J. PIERCE, Pastor Baptist Church.
The next general election occurred in September, 1871, for members of the second territorial legislature. The usual tactics were employed and considerable sums of money were given to the drinking saloons to secure their influence and furnish free drinks and cigars for the voters. But no one thought of trying to buy up the women, nor was it ever supposed that a woman's vote could be secured with whiskey and cigars! Election day passed off with entire quiet and good order around the polling-places; the noise and bustle were confined to the bar-rooms. The streets presented no change from an ordinary business day, except that a large number of wagons and carriages were driven about with the watch-words and banners of different parties, or different candidates, conspicuously posted on them. A much larger number of women voted at this election than at the former one, but quite a number failed or refused to take part in it. The result was again a surprise, and to many a disappointment. Some candidates were unexpectedly elected, and some who had spent large amounts of money and worked hard around the drinking saloons, and were ready to bet largely on being elected, were defeated. The Republicans had shown an unexpected strength and had returned several members to each House, although it was quite certain that some of the Democrats were indebted to the women for their success. It was admitted, however, that their votes had generally gone against the favorites of the whiskey shops and that the power of the saloons had been largely neutralized and in some cases entirely overthrown. Some remarkable instances of woman's independence and moral character occurred at this election which I cannot help recording, but must not mention names.
As above stated in reference to the grand jury in Laramie City, the "Sunday law" had there been put into vigorous operation. The evening before the election, and after both the political parties had nominated their candidates for the legislature, the saloon-keepers got together very secretly and nominated a ticket of their own number, pledged to repeal the "Sunday law." This move was not discovered until they began to vote that ticket at the polls next day. Then it was found that the saloons were pushing it with all their influence and giving free drinks to all who would vote it. This aroused the women and they came out in force; many who had declined to vote before not only voted, but went round and induced others to do the same. At noon the rum-sellers' ticket was far ahead and it looked as though it would be elected by a large majority; at the close of the polls at night it was overwhelmingly defeated. In one case the wife of a saloon-keeper who was a candidate on that ticket, told her husband that she would defeat him if she could. He was beaten, and he was man enough to say he was glad of it--glad he had a wife so much better than he was, and who had so much more influence in town than he had.
Another candidate on that ticket was a saloon-keeper who had grown rich in the traffic, but whose private character was much above the morals of his business. He had recently married a very nice young lady in the East, and she was much excited when she learned how matters were progressing. She told her husband she was ashamed of him and would vote against him, and would enlist all the members of her church against him if she could; and she went to work in earnest and was a most efficient cause of the defeat of the ticket. Her husband also was proud of her, and said it served him right and he was glad of it. I have never heard that the domestic harmony of either of these families was in anyway disturbed by these events, but I know that they have prospered and are still successful and happy.
Still the legislature was strongly Democratic. There were four Republicans and five Democrats in the Council, and four Republicans and nine Democrats in the House. When they met in November, 1871, many Democrats were found to be bitterly opposed to woman suffrage and determined to repeal the act; they said it was evident they were losing ground and the Republicans gaining by reason of the women voting, and that it must be stopped. The Republicans were all inclined to sustain the law. Several caucuses were held by the Democrats to determine on their course of action and overcome the opposition in their own ranks. These caucuses were held in one of the largest drinking saloons in Cheyenne and all the power of whiskey was brought to bear on the members to secure a repeal of the woman suffrage act. It required considerable time and a large amount of whiskey, but at last the opposition was stifled and the Democratic party was brought up solid for repeal. A bill was introduced in the House for the purpose, but was warmly resisted by the Republicans and a long discussion followed. It was finally carried by a strict party vote and sent to the Council, where it met with the same opposition and the same result followed. It then went to the governor for his approval. There was no doubt in his mind as to the course he ought to take. He had seen the effects produced by the act of enfranchisement, and unhesitatingly approved all of them. He promptly returned the bill with his veto; and the accompanying message is such an able paper and so fully sets forth the reasons in favor of the original act, and the good results of its operation, that at least a few extracts well deserve a prominent place in this record:
I return herewith to the House of Representatives, in which it originated, a bill for "An Act to repeal Chapter XXXI. of the Laws of the First Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Wyoming."
I regret that a sense of duty compels me to dissent from your honorable body with regard to any contemplated measure of public policy. It would certainly be more in accordance with the desire I have to secure and preserve the most harmonious relations among all the branches of our territorial government, to approve the bill. A regard, however, for the rights of those whose interests are to be affected by it, and for what I believe to be the best interests of the territory, will not allow me to do so. The consideration, besides, that the passage of this bill would be, on the part of those instrumental in bringing it about, a declaration that the principles upon which the enfranchisement of women is urged are false and untenable, and that our experience demonstrates this, influences me not a little in my present action.
While I fully appreciate the great danger of too much attention to abstract speculation or metaphysical reasoning in political affairs, I cannot but perceive that there are times and circumstances when it is not only proper but absolutely necessary to appeal to principles somewhat general and abstract, when they alone can point out the way and they alone can guide our conduct. So it was when, two years ago, the act which this bill is designed to repeal was presented for my approval. There was at that time no experience to which I might refer and test by its results the conclusions to which the application of certain universally admitted principles led me. In the absence of all such experience I was driven to the application of principles which through the whole course of our national history have been powerfully and beneficially operative in making our institutions more and more popular, in framing laws more and more just and in securing amendments to our federal constitution. If the ballot be an expression of the wish, or a declaration of the will, of the tax-payer as to the manner in which taxes should be levied and collected and revenues disbursed, why should those who hold in their own right a large proportion of the wealth of the country be excluded from a voice in making the laws which regulate this whole subject? If, again, the ballot be for the physically weak a guarantee of protection against the aggression and violence of the strong, upon what ground can the delicate bodily organism of woman be forbidden this shelter for her protection? If, once more, each ballot be the declaration of the individual will of the person casting it, as to the relative merit of opposed measures or men, surely the ability to judge and determine--the power of choice--does not depend upon sex, nor does womanhood deprive of personality. If these principles are too general to be free from criticism, and if this reasoning be too abstract to be always practically applicable, neither the principles nor the reasoning can fail of approbation when contrasted with the gloomy misgivings for the future and the dark forebodings of evils, imaginary, vague and undefined, by dwelling upon which the opponents of this reform endeavor to stay its progress. Aggressive reasoning and positive principles like these must be met with something more than mere doubtful conjectures, must be resisted by something more than popular prejudices, and overthrown--if overthrown at all--by something stronger than the force of inert conservatism; yet what is there but conjecture, prejudice and conservatism opposing this reform? * * * * * * * *
The law granting to women the right to vote and to hold office in this territory was a natural and logical sequence to the other laws upon our statute-book. Our laws give to the widow the guardianship of her minor children. Will you take from her all voice in relation to the public schools established for the education of those children? Our laws permit women to acquire and possess property. Will you forbid them having any voice in relation to the taxation of that property? This bill says too little or too much. Too little, if you legislate upon the assumption that woman is an inferior who should be kept in a subordinate position, for in that case the other laws affecting her should be repealed or amended; and too much, if she is, as no one will deny, the equal of man in heart and mind, for in that case we cannot afford to dispense with her counsel and assistance in the government of the territory.
I need only instance section 9 of the school act, which declares that, "In the employment of teachers no discrimination shall be made in the question of pay on account of sex when the persons are equally qualified." What is more natural than that the men who thought that women were competent to instruct the future voters and legislators of our land, should take the one step in advance of the public sentiment of yesterday and give to her equal wages for equal work? And when this step had been taken, what more natural than that they should again move forward--this time perhaps a little in advance of the public sentiment of to-day--and give to those whom they consider competent to instruct voters, the right to vote.
To the statement, so often made, that the law which this bill is intended to repeal was passed thoughtlessly and without proper consideration, I oppose the fact to which I have adverted, that the law perfectly conforms to all the other laws in relation to women upon our statute-book. Studied in connection with the other laws it would seem to have grown naturally from them. It harmonizes entirely with them, and forms a fitting apex to the grand pyramid which is being built up as broadly and as surely throughout all the States of the Union as it has been built up and capped in Wyoming.
The world does not stand still. The dawn of Christianity was the dawn of light for woman. For eighteen centuries she has been gradually but slowly rising from the condition of drudge and servant for man, to become his helpmeet, counselor and companion. As she has been advanced in the social scale, our laws have kept pace with that advancement and conferred upon her rights and privileges with accompanying duties and responsibilities. She has not abused those privileges, and has been found equal to the duties and responsibilities. And the day is not far distant when the refining and elevating influence of women will be as clearly manifested in the political as it now is in the social world.
Urged by all these considerations of right, and justice, and expediency, and the strong conviction of duty, I approved that act of which this bill contemplates the repeal, and it became a law. To warrant my reconsidering that action, there ought to be in the experience of the last two years something to show that the reasons upon which it was founded were unsound, or that the law itself was wrong or at least unwise and inexpedient. My view of the teachings of this experience is the very reverse of this. Women have voted, and have the officers chosen been less faithful and zealous and the legislature less able and upright? They have sat as jurors, and have the laws been less faithfully and justly administered, and criminals less promptly and adequately punished? Indeed the lessons of this two years' experience fully confirm all that has been claimed by the most ardent advocate of this innovation.
In this territory women have manifested for its highest interests a devotion strong, ardent, and intelligent. They have brought to public affairs a clearness of understanding and a soundness of judgment, which, considering their exclusion hitherto from practical participation in political agitations and movements, are worthy of the greatest admiration and above all praise. The conscience of women is in all things more discriminating and sensitive than that of men; their sense of justice, not compromising or time-serving, but pure and exacting; their love of order, not spasmodic or sentimental merely, but springing from the heart; all these,--the better conscience, the exalted sense of justice, and the abiding love of order, have been made by the enfranchisement of women to contribute to the good government and well-being of our territory. To the plain teachings of these two years' experience I cannot close my eyes. I cannot forget the benefits that have already resulted to our territory from woman suffrage, nor can I permit myself even to seem to do so by approving this bill.
There is another, and in my judgment, a serious objection to this bill, which I submit for the consideration and action of your honorable body. It involves a reference to that most difficult of questions, the limitations of legislative power. High and transcendent as that power undoubtedly and wisely is, there are limits which not even it can pass. Two years ago the legislature of this territory conferred upon certain of its citizens valuable rights and franchises. Can a future legislature, by the passage of a law not liable to the objection, that it violates the obligation of contracts, take away those rights? It is not claimed, so far as I have been informed, that the persons upon whom these franchises were conferred have forfeited or failed to take advantage of them. But even if such were the case it would be rather a matter for judicial determination than for legislative action. What that determination would be is clearly indicated in the opinion of Associate-justice Story in the celebrated case of Trustees of Dartmouth College vs. Woodward: "The right to be a freeman of a corporation is a valuable temporal right. * * It is founded on the same basis as the right of voting in public elections; it is as sacred a right; and whatever might have been the prevalence of former doubts, since the time of Lord Holt, such a right has always been deemed a valuable franchise or privilege."
But even if we concede that these rights once acquired may be taken away, the passage of this bill would be, in my judgment, a most dangerous precedent. Once admit the right of a representative body to disfranchise its own constituents, and who can establish the limits to which that right may not be carried? If this legislature takes from women their franchises or privileges, what is to prevent a future legislature from depriving certain men, or classes of men, that, from any consideration they desire to disfranchise, of the same rights? We should be careful how we inaugurate precedents which may "return to plague the inventors," and be used as a pretext for taking away our liberties.
It will be remembered that in my message to the legislature at the commencement of the present session I said: "There is upon our statue book an act granting to the women of Wyoming territory the right of suffrage and to hold office which has now been in force two years. Under its liberal provisions women have voted in the territory, served on juries, and held office. It is simple justice to say that the women, entering for the first time in the history of the country upon these new and untried duties, have conducted themselves with as much tact, sound judgment, and good sense as the men. While it would be claiming more than the facts justify, to say that this experiment, in a limited field, has demonstrated beyond a doubt the perfect fitness of woman, at all times and under all circumstances, for taking a part in the government, it furnishes at least reasonable presumptive evidence in her favor, and she has a right to claim that, so long as none but good results are made manifest, the law should remain unrepealed."
These were no hastily formed conclusions, but the result of deliberation and conviction, and my judgment to-day approves the language I then used. For the first time in the history of our country we have a government to which the noble words of our Magna Charta of freedom may be applied,--not as a mere figure of speech, but as expressing a simple grand truth,--for it is a government which "derives all its just powers from the consent of the governed." We should pause long and weigh carefully the probable results of our action before consenting to change this government. A regard for the genius of our institutions, for the fundamental principles of American autonomy, and for the immutable principles of right and justice, will not permit me to sanction this change.
These reasons for declining to give my consent to the bill, I submit with all deference for the consideration and judgment of your honorable body.
J. A. CAMPBELL.
The Republicans in the House made an ineffectual effort to sustain the veto, but the party whip and the power of the saloons were too strong for them, and the bill was passed over the veto by a vote of 9 to 4. It met a different and better fate, however, in the Council, where it was sustained by a vote of 4 to 5, a strict party vote in each case. Mr. Corlett, a rising young lawyer, at that time in the Council and since then a delegate in congress, made an able defense of the suffrage act and resisted its repeal, sustaining the veto with much skill and final success. And there was much need, for the Democrats had made overtures to one of the Republican members of the Council (they lacked one vote) and had obtained a promise from him to vote against the veto; but Mr. Corlett, finding out the fraud in season, reclaimed the fallen Republican and saved the law. It is due to Mr. Corlett to say that he has always been an able and consistent supporter of woman's rights and universal suffrage. He is now the leading lawyer of the territory.
Since that time the suffrage act has grown rapidly in popular favor, and has never been made a party question. The leading men of both parties, seeing its beneficial action, have given it an unqualified approval; and most, if not all, of its former enemies have become its friends and advocates. Most of the new settlers in the territory, though coming here with impressions or prejudices against it, soon learn to respect its operation, and admire its beneficial results. There is nowhere in the territory a voice raised against it, and it would be impossible to get up a party for its repeal.
The women uniformly vote at all our elections, and are exerting every year a more potent influence over the character of the candidates selected by each party for office, by quietly defeating those most objectionable in point of morals. It is true they are not now summoned to serve on juries, nor are they elected to office; and there are some obvious reasons for this. In the first place, they never push themselves forward for such positions, as the men invariably do; and in the second place, the judges who have been sent to the territory, since the first ones, have not insisted on respecting the women's rights as jurors, and in some cases have objected to their being summoned as such. But these matters will find a remedy by and by. It used to be an important question in the nominating caucuses, "Will this candidate put up money enough to buy the saloons, and catch the loafers and drinkers that they control?" Now the question is, "Will the women vote for this man, if we nominate him?" There have been some very remarkable instances where men, knowing themselves to be justly obnoxious to the women, have forced a nomination in caucus, relying on their money and the drinking shops and party strength to secure an election, who have been taught most valuable lessons by signal defeat at the polls. It would be invidious to call names or describe individual cases, and could answer no necessary purpose. But I would ask particular attention to the following articles, taken from recent newspapers, as full and satisfactory evidence of the truth of these statements, and of the wisdom of granting universal suffrage and equal rights to the citizens of Wyoming territory.
The Laramie City Daily Sentinel of December 16, 1878, J. H. Hayford, editor, has the following leading editorial:
For about eight years now, the women of Wyoming territory have enjoyed the same political rights and privileges as the men, and all the novelties of this new departure, all the shock it carried to the sensibilities of the old conservatives, have long since passed away. For a long time--even for years past--we have frequently received letters asking for information as to its practical results here, and still more frequently have received copies of eastern papers with marked articles which purported to be written by persons who resided here, or had visited the territory and witnessed the awful results or the total failure of the experiment. We have usually paid no attention to these false and anonymous scribblers, who took this method to display their shallow wit at the sacrifice of truth and decency. But recently we have received more than the usual number of such missives, and more letters, and from a more respectable source than before, and we take this occasion and method to answer them all at once, and once for always, and do it through the columns of the Sentinel, one of the oldest and most widely circulated papers in the territory, because it will be readily conceded that we would not publish here at home, false statements and misrepresentations upon a matter with which all our readers are familiar, and which, if false, could be easily refuted.
We assert here, then, that woman suffrage in Wyoming has been in every particular a complete success.
That the women of Wyoming value as highly the political franchise, and as generally exercise it, as do the men of the territory.
That being more helpless, more dependent and more in need of the protection of good laws and good government than are men, they naturally use the power put into their hands to secure these results.
That they are controlled more by principle and less by party ties than men, and generally cast their votes for the best candidates and the best measures.
That while women in this territory frequently vote contrary to their husbands, we have never heard of a case where the family ties or domestic relations were disturbed thereby, and we believe that among the pioneers of the West there is more honor and manhood than to abuse a wife because she does not think with her husband about politics or religion.
We have never seen any of the evil results growing out of woman suffrage which we have heard predicted for it by its opponents. On the contrary, its results have been only good, and that continually. Our elections have come to be conducted as quietly, orderly and civilly as our religious meetings, or any of our social gatherings, and the best men are generally selected to make and enforce our laws. We have long ago generally come to the conclusion that woman's influence is as wholesome and as much needed in the government of the State as in the government of the family. We do not know of a respectable woman in the territory who objects to or neglects to use her political power, and we do not know of a decent man in the territory who wishes it abolished, or who is not even glad to have woman's help in our government.
Our laws were never respected or enforced, and crime was never punished, or life or property protected until we had woman's help in the jury box and at the polls, and we unhesitatingly say here at home that we do not believe a man can be found who wishes to see her deprived of voice and power, unless it is the one "who fears not God nor regards man," who wants to pursue a life of vice or crime, and consequently fears woman's influence and power in the government. We assert further that the anonymous scribblers who write slanders on our women and our territory to the eastern press, are either fools, who know nothing about what they write, or else belong to that class of whom the poet says:
"No rogue e'er felt the halter draw With good opinion of the law."
We took some pains to track up and find out the author of one of the articles against woman suffrage to which our attention was called, and found him working on the streets of Cheyenne, with a ball and chain to his leg. We think he was probably an average specimen of these writers. And, finally, we challenge residents in Wyoming who disagree with the foregoing sentiments, and who endorse the vile slanders to which we refer, to come out over their own signature and in their own local papers and take issue with us, and our columns shall be freely opened to them.
There are some obvious inferences to be drawn and some rather remarkable lessons to be learned, from the foregoing narrative. In the first place, the responsibilities of self government, with the necessity of making their own laws, was delegated to a people, strangers to each other, with very little experience or knowledge in such matters, and composed of various nationalities, with a very large percentage of the criminal classes. It is a matter of surprise that they should have so soon settled themselves into an orderly community, where all the rights of person and property are well protected, and as carefully guarded and fully respected as in any of our old eastern commonwealths. It is a still greater surprise that a legislature selected by such a constituency, under such circumstances as characterized our first election, and composed of such men as were in fact elected, should have been able to enact a body of laws containing so much that was good and practicable, and so little that was injudicious, unwise or vicious.
In the next place, it is evident that there was no public sentiment demanding the passage of the woman suffrage law, and but few advocates of it at that time in the territory; that its adoption, under such circumstances, was not calculated to give it a fair chance to exert a favorable influence in the community, or even maintain itself among the permanent customs and laws of the territory. The prospect was, that it would either remain a dead letter, or be swept away under the ridicule and abuse of the press, and the open attacks of its enemies. But it has withstood all these adverse forces, and from small beginnings has grown to be a permanent power in our politics, a vital institution, satisfactory to all our people. The far-reaching benefits it will yet accomplish can be easily foreseen. To make either individuals or classes respected and induce them to respect themselves, you must give them power and influence, a fair field and full enjoyment of the results of their labors. We have made a very creditable beginning in this direction, so far as woman is concerned, and we have no doubts about the outcome of it. Wyoming treats all her citizens alike, and offers full protection, equal rewards, and equal power, to both men and women.
Again it is very evident that while our women take no active part in the primary nomination of candidates for office, they exercise a most potent influence by the independent manner in which they vote, and the signal defeat they inflict on many unworthy candidates. Their successful opposition to the power of the bar-rooms is a notable and praiseworthy instance of the wise use of newly-acquired rights. The saloon-keepers used to sell themselves to that party, or that man, who would pay the most, and while robbing the candidates, degraded the elections and debauched the electors. So long as it was understood that in order to secure an election it was necessary to secure the rum-shops, good men were left out of the field, and unscrupulous ones were sought after as candidates. The women have already greatly modified this state of affairs and are likely to change it entirely in the end.
Another wonderful consequence which has attended the presence of women at the polls, is the uniform quiet and good order on election day. All the police that could be mustered, could not insure half the decorum that their simple presence has everywhere secured. No man, not even a drunken one, is willing to act like a rowdy when he knows the women will see him. Nor is he at all anxious to expose himself in their presence when he knows he has drank too much. Such men quit the polls, and slink out of the streets, to hide themselves from the eyes of the women in the obscurity of the drinking shops.
Another fact of great importance is the uniform testimony as to woman's success as a juror. It is true that there has been but a limited opportunity, thus far, to establish this as a fact beyond all doubt. But a good beginning has been made, a favorable impression produced, and no bad results have accompanied or followed the experiment. If our jury system of trying cases is to be preserved, as a tolerable method of settling disputes and administering justice in our courts, every one will admit that a great improvement in the character of the jurors must be speedily found. At present, a jury trial is generally regarded as a farce, or something worse. The proof of this is seen in the fact that in most of our courts the judges are required to try all cases without a jury, where the parties to the action consent, and that in a great portion of the cases the parties do consent.
Another notable observation is the rapid growth of opinion in favor of woman suffrage among our people, after its first adoption; but more particularly the change effected in the minds of the new settlers, who come to the territory with old prejudices and fixed notions against it. Neither early education, nor personal bias, nor party rancor, has been able to withstand the overwhelming evidence of its good effects, and of its elevating and purifying influence in our political and social organization.
I must add, in conclusion, that the seventh legislature of our territory has just closed its session of sixty days. It was composed of more members than the earlier legislatures were, there being thirteen in the Council and twenty-six in the House. Many important questions came up for consideration, and a wide field of discussion was traveled over, but not one word was at any time spoken by any member against woman suffrage.
Hon. M. C. Brown, district-attorney for the territory, confirms the testimony given by the judges and Governor Campbell, in a letter to the National Suffrage Convention held in Washington in 1884, which will be found in the pamphlet report of that year.
FOOTNOTES:
[491] Messrs. Wade, Anthony, Gratz Brown, Buckalew, Cowan, Foster, Nesmith, Patterson, Riddle. See Vol. II., Chapter XVII.
[492] Ex-Governor Hoyt in his public speeches frequently gives this bird's-eye view of Bright's domestic and political discussions: "Betty, it's a shame that I should be a member of the legislature and make laws for such a woman as you. You are a great deal better than I am; you know a great deal more, and you would make a better member of the Assembly than I, and you know it. I have been thinking about it and have made up my mind that I will go to work and do everything in my power to give you the ballot. Then you may work out the rest in your own way." So he went over and talked with other members of the legislature. They smiled. But he got one of the lawyers to help him draw up a short bill, which he introduced. It was considered and discussed. People smiled generally. There was not much expectation that anything of that sort would be done; but this was a shrewd fellow, who managed the party card in such a way as to get, as he believed, enough votes to carry the measure before it was brought to the test. I will show you a little behind the curtain, so far as I can draw it. Thus he said to the Democrats: "We have a Republican governor and a Democratic Assembly. Now, then, if we can carry this bill through the Assembly and the governor vetoes it, we shall have made a point, you know; we shall have shown our liberality and lost nothing. But keep still; don't say anything about it." They promised. He then went to the Republicans and told them that the Democrats were going to support his measure, and that if they did not want to lose capital they had better vote for it too. He didn't think there would be enough of them to carry it, but the vote would be on record and thus defeat the game of the other party. And they likewise agreed to vote for it. So when the bill came to a vote it went right through! The members looked at, each other in astonishment, for they hadn't intended to do it, quite. Then they laughed and said it was a good joke, but they had "got the governor in a fix." So the bill went, in the course of time, to John A. Campbell, who was then governor--the first governor of the territory of Wyoming--and he promptly signed it! His heart was right. He saw that it was long-deferred justice, and so signed it as gladly as Abraham Lincoln wrote his name to the Proclamation of Emancipation of the slaves. Of course the women were astounded! If a whole troop of angels had come down with flaming swords for their vindication, they would not have been much more astonished than they were when that bill became a law and the women of Wyoming were thus clothed with the habiliments of citizenship.
[493] No sooner had these gentlemen left than Mrs. Post and Mrs. Arnold had a long interview with the governor, urging him to sign the bill on the highest moral grounds; not only to protect the personal rights of the women of the territory but to compel the men to observe the decencies of life and to elevate the social and political status of the people.--[E. C. S.
[494] In the summer of 1871 Mrs. Stanton and myself, en route for California, visited Wyoming and met the women who were most active in the exercise of their rights of citizenship. At Cheyenne we were the guests of Mrs. M. B. Arnold and Mrs. Amalia B. Post. Mrs. Arnold had a large cattle-ranch and Mrs. Post an equally large sheep-ranch a few miles out of the city, which they superintended, and from which each received an independent income. They had not only served as jurors, but acted as foremen. At Laramie we were the guests of Mr. J. H. Hayford, editor of the Laramie Sentinel, and met Grandma Swain, who was the first woman to cast her ballot in that city. We also met Judges Howe and Kingman and Governor Campbell, and heard from them of the wonderful changes wrought in the court-room and at the polls by the presence of enfranchised women. We spoke in the very court-room in which women had sat as jurors and felt an added inspiration from that fact.--[S. B. A.
[495] The following is the list of the first grand jury at Laramie City, composed of nine men and six women, as impanneled and sworn: C. H. Bussard, foreman; Mrs. Jane E. Hilton, T. W. DeKay, Jeremiah Boies, Mrs. H. C. Swain. Joseph DeMars, M. N. Merrill, Mrs. M. A. Pierce, Mrs. C. Blake, Richard Turpin, G. W. Cardwell, Mrs. S. L. Larimer, N. C. Worth, Mrs. Jane Mackle, W. H. Mitchell.
LIII. CALIFORNIA
Liberal Provisions in the Constitution--Elizabeth T. Schenck--Eliza W. Farnham--Mrs. Mills' Seminary, now a State Institution--Jeannie Carr, State Superintendent of Schools--First Awakening--The Revolution--Anna Dickinson--Mrs. Gordon Addresses the Legislature, 1868--Mrs. Pitts Stevens Edits The Pioneer--First Suffrage Society on the Pacific Coast, 1869--State Convention, January 26, 1870, Mrs. Wallis, President--State Association Formed, Mrs. Haskell of Petaluma, President--Mrs. Gordon Nominated for Senator--In 1871, Mrs. Stanton and Miss Anthony Visit California--Hon. A. A. Sargent Speaks in Favor of Suffrage for Woman--Ellen Clarke Sargent Active in the Movement--Legislation Making Women Eligible to Hold School Offices, 1873--July 10, 1873, State Society Incorporated, Sarah Wallis, President--Mrs. Clara Foltz--A Bill Giving Women the Right to Practice Law--The Bill Passed and Signed by the Governor--Contest Over Admitting Women into the Law Department of the University--Supreme Court Decision Favorable--Hon. A. A. Sargent on the Constitution and Laws--Journalists and Printers--Silk Culture--Legislative Appropriation--Mrs. Knox Goodrich Celebrates July 4, 1876--Imposing Demonstration--Ladies in the Procession.
The central figure in the seal of California is the presiding goddess of that State, her spear in one hand, the other resting on her shield, the cabalistic word "Eureka" over her head and a bear crouching quietly at her feet. She seems to be calmly contemplating the magnificent harbor within the Golden Gate. The shadows on the distant mountains, the richly-laden vessels and the floating clouds indicate the peaceful sunset hour, and the goddess, in harmony with the scene is seated at her ease, as if after many weary wanderings in search of an earthly Paradise she had found at last the land of perennial summers, fruits and flowers--a land of wonders, with its mammoth trees, majestic mountain-ranges and that miracle of grandeur and beauty, the Yosemite Valley. Verily it seems as if bounteous Nature in finishing the Pacific Slope did her best to inspire the citizens of that young civilization with love and reverence for the beautiful and grand.
California, admitted to the Union in 1850, owing to the erratic character of her early population, has passed through more vicissitudes than any other State, but she secured at last social order, justice in her courts and a somewhat liberal constitution, as far as the personal and property rights of the "white male citizen" were concerned. By its provisions--
All legal distinctions between individuals on religious grounds are prohibited; the utmost freedom of assembling, of speech and of the press is allowed, subject only to restraint for abuse; there is no imprisonment for debt, except where fraud can be proved; slavery and involuntary servitude, except for crime, are prohibited; wives are secured in their separate rights of property; the exemption of a part of the homestead and other property of heads of families from forced sale is recognized.
So far so good; but while the constitution limits the franchise to every "white male citizen" over twenty-one, who has been a resident of the State six months, and thus makes outlaws and pariahs of all the noble women who endured the hardships of the journey by land or by sea to that country in the early days, who helped to make it all that it is, that instrument cannot be said to secure justice, equality and liberty to all its citizens. The position in the constitution and laws of that vast territory, of the real woman who shares the every-day trials and hardships of her sires and sons inspires no corresponding admiration and respect, with the ideal one who gilds and glorifies the great seal of the State.
For the main facts of this chapter we are indebted to Elizabeth T. Schenck.[496] She says:
Out of the stirring scenes and tragical events characterizing the early days of California one can well understand that there came of necessity many brave and adventurous argonauts and many women of superior mental force, from among whom in after years the woman suffrage cause might receive most devoted adherents. For nearly a score of years after the great incursion of gold-seekers into this newly-acquired State no word was uttered by tongue or pen demanding political equality for women--none at least which reached the public ear. There were no preceding causes, as in the older States, to stimulate the discussion of the question, and even that mental amazon, Eliza W. Farnham who was one of the distinguished pioneers of California, gathered her inspiration from afar, and thought and wrote for the whole world of women without once sounding the tocsin for woman's political emancipation. Many of the women who braved the perils of the treacherous deep, or still more terrible dangers of the weary march over broad deserts, inhospitable mountains, and through the fastnesses of hostile and merciless Indians, to reach California in the early times, entertained broad views upon the intellectual capacity and political rights of women, but their efforts were confined to fields of literature. While this advanced guard of progressive women was moulding into form a social system out of the turbulent and disorganized masses thrown together by the rapidly-increasing population from all parts of the globe, the elements were aggregating which in after years produced powerful, outspoken thought and earnest action in behalf of disfranchised women.
Here as elsewhere women took the lead in school matters and were the most capable and efficient educators from the days of "'49." One of our permanent State institutions, Mills' Seminary, was founded by a woman whose name it bears, and who, assisted by her husband, Rev. Mr. Mills, conducted the school for nearly a quarter of a century, until by an act of the legislature, she conveyed it to the State. Several principals of the public schools in San Francisco have held their positions for over twenty consecutive years. Mrs. Jeanne Carr, deputy state superintendent of public instruction from 1871 to 1875, was succeeded by Mrs. Kate M. Campbell, who served most efficiently for the full term. During Mrs. Carr's public service she visited nearly every county in the State, attending teachers' institutes, and lecturing upon educational topics with great ability. For many years women have been eligible to school offices in California and there is not a county in the State where women have not filled positions as trustees or been elected to the office of county superintendent.[497] Mrs. Coleman has been reelected to that office in Shasta county, and Mrs. E. W. Sullivan in Mono county has served for several terms.
The first attempt to awaken the public mind to the question of suffrage for woman was a lecture given by Laura De Force Gordon in Platt's Hall, San Francisco, February 19, 1868. Although the attendance was small, a few earnest women were there[498] who formed the nucleus of what followed. Soon after Mrs. Gordon addressed the legislature in the senate-chamber at Sacramento, and made an eloquent appeal for the political rights of women. Among the audience were many members of the legislature who became very deeply impressed with the justice of her demand, including the subsequent governor of the State, George C. Perkins, then senator from Butte county. Soon afterwards Mrs. Gordon removed to Nevada, and no more lectures on woman suffrage were given until the visit of Anna Dickinson in the summer of 1869.
The way was being prepared however, for further agitation by the appearance of The Revolution in 1868 in New York, which was hailed by the women of California (as elsewhere) as the harbinger of a brighter and better era. Its well filled pages were eagerly read and passed from hand to hand, and the effect of its startling assertions was soon apparent. Mrs. Pitts Stevens had about that time secured a proprietary interest in the San Francisco Mercury, and was gradually educating her readers up to a degree of liberality to endorse suffrage. Early in 1869 she became sole proprietor, changing the name to Pioneer, and threw the woman suffrage banner to the breeze in an editorial of marked ability.
The organization of the National Woman Suffrage Association in New York, May, 1869, gave fresh impetus to the movement, and the appointment of Mrs. Elizabeth T. Schenck as vice-president for California by that association, met with the approval of all those interested in the movement. Soon after this Mrs. Schenck with her gifted ally, Mrs. Stevens, decided to organize a suffrage society, and at an impromptu meeting of some of the friends at the residence of Mrs. Nellie Hutchinson, July 27, 1869, the first association for this purpose on the Pacific coast was formed. There were just a sufficient number of members[499] to fill the offices. This society grew rapidly and within a month the parlors were found inadequate to the constantly increasing numbers. Through the courtesy of the Mercantile Library Association their commodious apartments were secured.
The advent of Anna Dickinson afforded the ladies an opportunity to attest their admiration for her as a representative woman, which they did, giving her a public breakfast, September 14. Their honored guest appreciated the compliment; and in an earnest and eloquent speech referred to it, saying that although she had received many demonstrations of the kind, this was the first ever given her exclusively by her own sex.[500]
Soon after Miss Dickinson's departure, Mrs. Schenck, much to the regret of the society, resigned the chair, and Mrs. J. W. Stow was appointed to fill the vacancy. The ladies having for some time considered the organizing of a State Society of great importance, it was decided to hold a grand mass convention for that purpose. There was need of funds to carry forward the work, and a course of three lectures was suggested as a means to raise money. This carried, on motion of Mrs. Stow, and her offer to deliver the first lecture of the course was accepted. All the members of the society devoted their energies to secure the success of the undertaking. Many of them engaged in selling tickets for the two weeks intervening, and on November 2, Mrs. Stow gave her lecture to a large and interested audience, taking for her theme, "Woman's Work." The Rev. Mr. Hamilton followed, November 9, with "The Parlor and the Harem," and the Rev. C. G. Ames concluded the course, November 18, with "What Does it Mean?" The lectures were well received, and though not particularly directed to the right of suffrage for women, succeeded in attracting attention to the society under whose auspices they were given, and helped it financially. About this time Mrs. Gordon returned from the East and took an active part in canvassing the State, lecturing and forming county societies preparatory to securing as large a representation as possible at the coming convention. The following report of the proceedings is taken from the San Francisco dailies:
The convention to form a State Woman Suffrage Society, held its first meeting in Dashaway Hall, Wednesday afternoon, January 26, 1870. The hall was well filled. Mrs. E. T. Schenck, vice-president of the National Association, was chosen president, pro. tem., and Miss Kate Atkinson, Secretary. A committee on credentials was appointed by the chair, consisting of one member from each organization.[501] During the absence of the committee quite an animated discussion arose as to the admission of delegates. Mrs. Gordon said the greatest possible liberality should be exercised in admitting persons to the right to speak and vote; that all who signed the roll, paid the fee, and expressed themselves in sympathy with the movement, should be admitted. After some discussion, Mrs. Gordon's views prevailed, and the names of those who chose to qualify themselves were enrolled. About 120 delegates were thus chosen from nine suffrage societies in different parts of the State. Many counties were represented in which no organizations had yet been formed. Some rather humorous discussion was had as to whether the president should be called Mrs. Chairman or Mrs. Chairwoman. The venerable Mr. Spear arose and suggested the title be Mrs. President, which was adopted. Mrs. Gordon said she had noticed that when questions were put to the meeting not more than a dozen timid voices could be heard saying "aye," or "no." The ladies must not sit like mummies, but open their mouths and vote audibly. This disinclination to do business in a business-like way, is discreditable. (Cheers). Mrs. Gordon's hint was taken, and unequivocal demonstration of voices was made thereafter upon the taking of each vote. Long before the time arrived for the evening session, the hall in every part, platform, floor and gallery, was crowded, and large numbers were unable to gain entrance.
The Committee on Permanent Organization presented the following names for officers of the convention: President, Mrs. Wallis of Mayfield; Vice-Presidents, J. A. Collins, C. G. Ames, Mrs. Mary W. Coggins; Secretaries, Mrs. McKee, Mrs. Rider, Mrs. Perry; Treasurer, Mrs. Collins. On motion, Mrs. Haskell and Mrs. Ames escorted the president to the rostrum, and introduced her to the convention. Mrs. Wallis is a lady of imposing presence, and very earnest in the movement. Upon being introduced she said:
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN--I thank you for this expression of your high esteem and confidence in electing me to preside over your deliberations. I regard this as a severe ordeal, but, having already been tested in this respect, I do not fear the trials to come. I shall persevere until the emancipation of women is effected, and in order to fulfill my duties successfully upon this occasion, I ask the hearty cooeperation of all. [Applause].
Mrs. Stow gave the opening address, after which delegates[502] from various localities made interesting reports. An able series of resolutions was presented and discussed at length by various members of the convention, and letters of sympathy were read from friends throughout the country.[503]
From the first session, some anxiety was felt regarding the action of the State Society in affiliating with one of the two rival associations in the East. The Rev. C. G. Ames of San Francisco, whose wife had been in attendance upon the Cleveland convention of the American Association, was appointed vice-president for California, while Mrs. E. T. Schenck had been appointed vice-president by the National Association. In addition to the names of officers of county societies appended to the call for this convention, both Mrs. Schenck and Mrs. Ames signed in their official capacity, as vice-president of their respective Associations. Under these circumstances it was not strange that a spirit of rivalry should manifest itself, but it was unfortunate that it was carried so far as to breed disturbance in this infant organization. The leading women looked upon Mrs. E. Cady Stanton and Miss Susan B. Anthony as among the first who organized the suffrage movement in the United States, and therefore felt that it was due to them that our California Society which owed its existence mainly to the efforts of Mrs. Schenck whom they had appointed vice-president for California, should show its loyalty, devotion and gratitude to them, by becoming auxiliary to the National Association. On the other hand, Rev. C. G. Ames, being an enthusiastic admirer of some of the leading spirits in the American Association, desired it to be auxiliary to that. This conflict having been foreshadowed, a letter was written to Miss Anthony in relation to it. Her reply was received by Mrs. Schenck on the first day of the convention, breathing a noble spirit of unselfishness, advising us not to allow any personal feelings towards Mrs. Stanton or herself to influence us in the matter, but rather to keep our association entirely independent, free to cooeperate with all societies having for their object the enfranchisement of woman. Accordingly, the following resolution was almost unanimously adopted:
Resolved, That the California Woman Suffrage Society remain independent of all other associations for one year.
The result was satisfactory to Mrs. Schenck and her sympathizers, but Mr. Ames seemed loth to relinquish his preference for the American, and the course taken had the effect of lessening his zeal and that of his followers, until they gradually dropped from the ranks. But the convention, despite the unfortunate schism, was a grand success. The sessions were crowded, and so great was the interest awakened in the public mind that a final adjournment was not had until Saturday night, after four days of earnest, profitable work. The press of the city gave full and fair reports of the proceedings, though very far from endorsing woman's claim to suffrage, and men and women of all classes and professions took an active part in the deliberations. But of the multitude who met in that first woman suffrage convention on the Pacific coast but few were prominent in after years.
The newly organized society immediately arranged to send a delegation to Sacramento, to present to the legislature then in session a petition for woman suffrage. The delegation consisted of Laura DeForce Gordon, Caroline H. Spear and Laura Cuppy Smith, who were accorded a hearing before a special committee of the Senate, of which the venerable Judge Tweed, an able advocate of woman suffrage, was chairman. The proceeding was without a parallel in the history of the State. The novelty of women addressing the legislature attracted universal attention, and the newspapers were filled with reports of that important meeting.
During the year 1870 a general agitation was kept up. A number of speakers[504] held meetings in various parts of the State. The newspapers were constrained to notice this all-absorbing topic, though most of them were opposed to the innovation, and maintained a bitter war against its advocates. Prominent among them was the sensational San Francisco Chronicle followed by the Bulletin, the Call, and in its usual negative style, the Alta, while the Examiner mildly ridiculed the subject, and a score of lesser journalistic lights throughout the State exhibited open hostility to woman suffrage, or simply mentioned the fact of its agitation as a matter of news. But the brave pioneers in this unpopular movement received kindly sympathy and encouragement from some journals of influence, first among which was the San Francisco Post, then under the management of that popular journalist, Harry George, afterwards distinguished as the author of "Progress and Poverty." The San Jose Mercury was our friend from the first, and its fearless and able editor, J. J. Owen, accepted the office of president of the State woman suffrage society to which he was elected in 1878. The Sacramento Bee also did valiant service in defending and advocating woman's political equality, its veteran editor, James McClatchy, being a man of liberal views and great breadth of thought, whose powerful pen was wielded in advocacy of justice to all until his death, which occurred in October, 1883. There were several county journals that spoke kind words in our behalf, and occasionally one under the editorial management of a woman would fearlessly advocate political equality.
During the year of 1870, Mrs. Gordon traveled extensively over the State, delivering more than one hundred lectures, beside making an extended tour, in company with Mrs. Pitts Stevens, through Nevada, where on the Fourth of July, at a convention held at Battle Mountain, the first suffrage organization for that State was effected. In February, 1871, Mrs. Gordon again lectured in Nevada, remaining several weeks in Carson while the legislature was in session. She was invited by that body to address them upon the proposed amendment to the State constitution to allow women to vote, which amendment was lost by a majority of only two votes, obtained by a political trick, the question being voted upon without a call of the House, when several members friendly to the measure were absent. The author of the proposed amendment was the Hon. C. J. Hillier, a prominent lawyer of Virginia City, who, in bringing the bill before the legislature in 1869, delivered one of the ablest arguments ever given in favor of woman suffrage.
In 1871 Mrs. Gordon again made an extended tour through California, Oregon, and Washington Territory, traveling mostly by stage, enduring hardships, braving dangers and everywhere overcoming prejudice and antagonism to strong-minded women, by the persuasiveness of her arguments. In September, while lecturing in Seaettle, a telegram informed her of her nomination by the Independent party of San Joaquin county for the office of State senator, requesting her immediate return to California. This necessitated a journey of nearly a thousand miles, one-half by stage-coach. Six days of continuous travel brought her to Stockton, where she entered at once upon the senatorial campaign. Mrs. Gordon spoke every night until election, and succeeded in awakening a lively interest in her own candidacy and in the subject of woman suffrage. Her eligibility to the office was vehemently denied, particularly by Republicans, who were badly frightened at the appearance of this unlooked-for rival. The pulpit, press, and stump speakers alternated in ridiculing the idea of a woman being allowed to take a seat in the Senate, even if elected. The Democratic party, being in the minority, offered but little opposition, and watched with great amusement this unequal contest between the great dominant party on the one side, and the little Spartan band on the other. The contest was as exciting as it was brief, and despite the great odds of money, official power, political superiority, and the perfect machinery of party organization in favor of her opponents, Mrs. Gordon received about 200 votes, besides as many more which were rejected owing to some technical irregularity. Among those who took part in that novel campaign and deserving special mention, was the venerable pioneer familiarly called Uncle Jarvis, who had voted a straight Whig or Republican ticket for fifty years, and who for the first time in his life scratched his ticket and voted for Mrs. Gordon.
In July, 1871, California was favored by a visit from Mrs. Stanton and Miss Anthony, who awakened new interest wherever their logical and eloquent appeals were heard. Their advent was hailed with joy, and they received marked attention from all classes, the clergy not excepted. Every lecture given by them drew out large assemblies of the most influential of the citizens. Indeed, they received a continual ovation during their stay in San Francisco. After Mrs. Stanton returned to New York, Miss Anthony remained and traveled in California, Nevada, Oregon and Washington Territory several months, speaking at conventions held in San Francisco and Sacramento, besides lecturing in all the principal towns, winning for herself great praise, and a deeper respect for the cause she so ably represented. A complimentary banquet was tendered her in San Francisco on the eve of her departure eastward, at which eighty guests, distinguished in art, literature and social life, sat down to a sumptuous collation spread in the Grand Hotel.
In the early part of that year, 1871, Hon. A. A. Sargent and wife returned to California from Washington, his term as representative having expired, and both took an active part in the work of woman's political enfranchisement. Mr. Sargent, with commendable bravery, which under the circumstances was indeed a test of courage, delivered an address in favor of woman suffrage at a convention held in San Francisco, just on the eve of an important political campaign, in which he was a candidate for reelection to congress, and also to the United States Senate. Of course, those opposed to woman suffrage tried to make capital out of it against him, but without avail, for that able and distinguished statesman was elected to both offices, his term as representative expiring before he would be called upon to take his seat in the United States Senate. His noble wife, Ellen Clark Sargent, took an active interest in all the woman suffrage meetings, and in November, 1871, was appointed, as was also Mrs. Gordon, to represent California in the National convention to be held in Washington in January, 1872.
During the session of the California legislature in 1871-2 a delegation from the State Society visited Sacramento and was accorded a hearing in the Assembly-chamber before the Judiciary Committee of that body. Addresses were made by Mrs. Pitts Stevens, Mrs. A. A. Haskell, Mrs. E. A. H. DeWolf and Hon. John A. Collins.
During the session of 1873-4 a bill was passed by the legislature making women eligible to school offices, and also one which provided that all women employed in the public schools should receive the same compensation as men holding the same grade certificates.
Mrs. Laura Morton has filled and ably discharged the office of assistant State librarian for the past ten years. Mrs. Mandeville was deputy-controller during the Democratic administration of Governor Irwin, and proved herself fully capable of discharging the duties of that responsible office; while for several years women have been elected to various positions in the legislature and employed as clerks.
July 10, 1873, the Woman Suffrage Society was incorporated under the laws of the State, with Mrs. Sarah Wallis, president. Mrs. Clara S. Foltz, a brilliant young woman who had begun the study of law in San Jose, knew the statutes permitted no woman to be admitted to the bar, and early in the session of 1877 drafted a bill amending the code in favor of women, and sent it to Senator Murphy of Santa Clara to be presented. Five years before this, however, Mrs. Nettie Tator had applied for admission to the bar at Santa Cruz. A committee of prominent attorneys appointed by the court examined her qualifications as a lawyer. She passed creditably and was unanimously recommended by the committee, when it was discovered that the law would not admit women to that learned profession.
Following the presentation of Mrs. Foltz' bill, Mrs. Knox Goodrich, Laura Watkins, Mrs. Wallis and Laura De Force Gordon were appointed by the State Society a committee to visit Sacramento during the session and use their influence to secure the passage of the "Woman's Lawyer Bill," as it was termed, and to petition for suffrage. Mrs. Gordon, who was also reading law, was in Sacramento as editorial correspondent for her paper, the Daily Democrat of Oakland, and had ample opportunity to render valuable service to the cause she had so much at heart. The bill passed the Senate by a vote of 22 to 9, being ably advocated by Senators N. Green Curtis, Judge Niles Searles of Nevada county, Creed Haymond of Sacramento, and Joseph Craig of Yolo. In the Assembly, after weeks of tedious delay and almost endless debate, the bill was indefinitely postponed by a majority of one. By the persistent efforts of Assemblymen Grove L. Johnson of Sacramento, R. W. Murphy, Charles Gildea and Dr. May of San Francisco, the bill was brought up on reconsideration and passed by two majority. The session was within three days of its close, and so bitter was the opposition to the bill that an effort was made to prevent its engrossment in time to be presented for the governor's signature. The women and their allies, who were on the watch for tricks, defeated the scheme of their enemies and had the bill duly presented to Governor Irwin, but not till the last day of the session. Then the suspense became painful to those most interested lest it might not receive his approval. Mrs. Gordon, as editor of a Democratic journal, asserted her claims to some recognition from that party and strongly urged that a Democratic governor should sign the bill. Aided by a personal appeal from Senator Niles Searles to his excellency, her efforts were crowned with success; the governor's message sent to the Senate, when the hands of the clock pointed to fifteen minutes of twelve, midnight (at which hour the president's gavel would descend with the words adjourning the Senate sine die), announced that Senate bill number 66, which permitted the admission of women to all the courts of the State, had received his approval. There was great rejoicing over this victory among the friends everywhere, though the battle was not yet ended.
The same legislature had passed a bill accepting the munificent donation to the State of $100,000 from Judge Hastings to found the Hastings College of Law, on condition that it be the law department of the State University, and the college was duly opened for the admission of students. At the beginning of the December term Mrs. Foltz, who had been admitted to the District Court in San Jose (being the first woman ever admitted to any court in the State), came to San Francisco, and with Mrs. Gordon applied for admission to the law college. The dean, Judge Hastings, himself opposed to women being received as students, told them it was a matter that must be laid before the board of directors, but that they could attend the lectures ad interim. Three days later they were informed that their application had been denied. Satisfied that the law was in their favor, they immediately appealed to the courts. To save time Mrs. Gordon applied to the Supreme Court and Mrs. Foltz to the District Court, simultaneously, for a writ of mandamus to compel the directors to act in obedience to the law which, the petitioners claimed, did not discriminate against women in founding the State University or its departments. The Supreme Court, wishing perhaps to shirk the responsibility of acting in the first instance, sent their petitioner, Mrs. Gordon, to the lower court, which had in the meantime ordered the writ to issue for Mrs. Foltz; so it was decided to make hers the test-case, and by the courtesy of Judge Morrison, now chief-justice of the Supreme Court, Mrs. Gordon was joined with Mrs. Foltz in the prosecution of the cause. The board of directors of the college consisted of the chief-justice of the Supreme Bench and seven other lawyers, among the most distinguished and able in the State. The case attracted great attention and deep interest was taken in the proceedings. Judges Lake and Cope, who were ex-justices of the Supreme Court, assisted by T. B. Bishop, another learned practitioner at the bar, were arrayed as counsel for the defense against these comparatively young students in the law, who appeared unaided in their own behalf. After one of the most interesting legal contests in the history of the State these women came off victors, and the good-natured public, through the press, offered them congratulations. But the defendants would not yield without a stubborn resistance and carried their cause on appeal to the Supreme Court; hence many months elapsed before the final struggle came, but victory again rewarded the petitioners, the Supreme Court deciding that women should be admitted to the law department of the State University. Although excluded from the benefit of the lectures in the college, Mesdames Gordon and Foltz had improved their time in study, and in December, 1879, both were admitted to the Supreme Court of the State, after a thorough examination.
Prior to this legal contest, in the summer of 1878, when delegates to the constitutional convention were to be elected, Mrs. Gordon, urged by her friends in San Joaquin county, became an independent candidate only a week or two before the election. With Mrs. Foltz she made a very brief though brilliant canvass, attracting larger and more enthusiastic audiences than any other speaker. Mrs. Gordon received several hundred votes for the office, and felt compensated for the time and money spent by the great interest awakened in the subject of woman suffrage.
As soon as the constitutional convention assembled in September, Mrs. Gordon, although still pursuing her legal studies, was able as a newspaper correspondent to closely watch the deliberations of that body and urge the insertion of a woman suffrage clause in the new organic law. The State Society delegated Mrs. Knox Goodrich, Mrs. Sarah Wallis and Mrs. Watkins to join Mrs. Gordon in pressing the claims of woman, but the opposition was too strong and the suffrage clause remained declaring male citizens entitled to vote, though a section in the bill of rights, together with other provisions in the new constitution, renders it quite probable that the legislature has the right to enfranchise women without having to amend the organic law. At all events the new instrument is far more favorable to women than the old, as will now be shown. The agitation of the question of the admission of women to the Law College, which began during the session of the convention, led that body to incorporate the following provision in the constitution:
ARTICLE II., SEC. 18. No person shall be debarred admission to any of the collegiate departments of the State University on account of sex.
Remembering the hard struggle by which the right to practice law had been secured to women, and the danger of leaving it to the caprice of future legislatures, Mrs. Gordon drafted a clause which protects women in all lawful vocations, and by persistent effort succeeded in getting it inserted in the new constitution, as follows:
ARTICLE XX., SEC. 18. No person shall, on account of sex, be disqualified from entering upon or pursuing any lawful business, vocation or profession.
The adoption of this clause, so valuable to women, was mainly accomplished by the skillful diplomacy of Hon. Charles S. Ringgold, delegate from San Francisco, who introduced it in the convention and worked faithfully for its adoption. Thus California stands to-day one of the first States in the Union, as regards the educational, industrial and property rights of women, and the probability of equal political rights being secured to them at an early day, is conceded by the most conservative.
About the time Mrs. Foltz and Mrs. Gordon were admitted to the bar, they, as chief officers of the State W. S. S. (incorporated), called a convention in San Francisco. It convened in February, 1880, and was well attended. Mrs. Sargent took an active part in the meetings, occupied the chair as president pro tem., and subsequently spoke of the work done by the National Association in Washington. Several prominent officials, unable to be present, sent letters heartily endorsing our claims; among these were Governor Perkins, State Senator Chace, and A. M. Crane, judge of the Superior Court. Addresses were delivered by Judge Swift, Marian Todd and Mrs. Thorndyke of Los Angeles, Judge Palmer of Nevada city, and others. The newspapers of the city, though still hostile to the object of the convention, gave very fair reports. In September following, the annual meeting of the society was held, and made particularly interesting by the fact that the proposed new city charter, which contained a clause proscriptive of women, was denounced, and a plan of action agreed upon whereby its defeat should be secured, if possible, at the coming election. The women worked assiduously against the adoption of the city charter, and rejoiced to see it rejected by a large majority.
The following facts in regard to the constitution and statute laws of California were sent us by the Hon. A. A. Sargent:
In 1879, California adopted a new constitution, by means of a constitutional convention. It was an unfortunate time for such organic legislation, for the reason that the State was rife at the time with the agitation of "sand-lotters," as they were called, a violent faction which assailed property rights and demanded extreme concessions to labor. The balance of power in the constitutional convention was held by persons elected by this element, and resulted in a constitution extraordinary in some of its features, but which was adopted by the people after a fierce contest.
Women fared badly at the hands of these constitution-makers, so far as suffrage is concerned. Section 1, article 2, confirms the right of voting to "every native male citizen," and "every male naturalized citizen," although a heroic effort was made by the friends of woman suffrage to keep out the word "male." But section 18, article XX., provides that "no person shall, on account of sex, be disqualified from entering upon or pursuing any lawful business, vocation or profession."
Some years before, the State had adopted a "civil code," which was abreast of the world in liberality to women. This code discarded the idea of any servility in the relation of the wife to the husband. This code is still the law, and provides, in effect, that husband and wife contract toward each other obligations of mutual respect, fidelity and support. The husband is the head of the family, and may choose any reasonable place and mode of life, and the wife must conform thereto. Neither has any interest in the property of the other, and neither can be excluded from the other's dwelling. Either may enter into any engagement or transaction with the other, or with any other person, respecting property, which either might if unmarried. They may hold property as tenants in common or otherwise, with each other, and with others. All property of the wife owned by her before marriage, and acquired afterwards by gift, devise, bequest or descent, with the rents, issues and profit thereof, is her separate property, and she may convey the same without his consent. All property acquired after marriage is community property. The earnings of the wife are not liable for the debts of the husband. Her earnings, and those of minor children in her custody, are her separate property. A married woman may dispose of her separate property by will, without the consent of her husband, as if she were single. One-half of the community property goes absolutely to the wife, on the death of the husband, and cannot be diverted by his testamentary disposition. A married woman can carry on business in her own name, on complying with certain formalities, and her stock, capital and earnings are not liable to her husband's creditors, or his intermeddling. The husband and father, as such, has no rights superior to those of the wife and mother, in regard to the care, custody, education and control of the children of their marriage, while such husband and wife live separate and apart from each other.
The foregoing exhibits the spirit of the California law. It is believed by friends of woman suffrage that had the convention been held under normal conditions, the word "male" might have been eliminated from that instrument.
Several creditable attempts were early made in journalism. In 1855 Mrs. S. M. Clark published the weekly Contra Costa in Oakland. In 1858, The Hesperian, a semi-monthly magazine, was issued in San Francisco, Mrs. Hermione Day and Mrs. A. M. Shultz, editors. It was quite an able periodical,[505] and finally passed into the hands of Elizabeth T. Schenck.
As journalists and printers, women have met with encouraging success. The most prominent among them is Laura DeForce Gordon, who began the publication of the Daily Leader at Stockton in 1873, continued afterward at Oakland as the Daily Democrat, until 1878. In Geo. P. Rowell's Newspaper Reporter for 1874, the Stockton Leader is announced as "the only daily newspaper in the world edited and published by a woman." Mrs. Boyer, known as "Dora Darmoor," published different magazines and journals in San Francisco during a period of several years, the most successful being the Golden Dawn. Mrs. Theresa Corlett has been connected with various leading journals of San Francisco, and is well known as a brilliant and interesting writer. Miss Madge Morris has not only made a place for herself in light literature, but has been acting-clerk in the legislature for several sessions. Mrs. Sarah M. Clark published a volume entitled "Teachings of the Ages"; Mrs. Josephine Wolcott, a volume of poems, called "The World of Song."
Mrs. Amanda Slocum Reed, one of our most efficient advocates of suffrage, has proved her executive ability, and capacity for business, by the management of a large printing and publishing establishment for several years. The liberal magazine called Common Sense, was published by her and her husband--most of its original contents the product of her pen; and when the radicalism of her husband caused the suspension of that journal in 1878, Mrs. Slocum began the publication of Roll Call, a temperance magazine which was mainly edited by her gifted little daughter Clara, only fifteen years old, who also set all the type. Among the earliest printers of California was Lyle Lester. She established a printing office in San Francisco in 1860, in which she employed a large number of girls and women as compositors. Miss Delia Murphy--now Mrs. Dearing--ranks with the best printers in San Francisco, and several women in various portions of the State have taken like standing. "Mrs. Richmond & Son," is the novel sign which decorates the front of a large printing establishment on Montgomery street, San Francisco, known for many years as the "Woman's Cooeperative Printing Company," but which, in fact, was always an individual enterprise. Mrs. Augusta DeForce Cluff has entered upon her seventh year in practical journalism as publisher of a sprightly weekly, the Valley Review, at Lodi, in which enterprise she has met with remarkable success, being a superior business manager as well as a facile and talented writer. Some of her little poems have great merit. Mrs. Cluff and Mrs. Gordon have both filled official positions in the Pacific Coast Press Association. Miss Mary Bogardus, the gifted young daughter of that pioneer journalist, H. B. Bogardus, editor of Figaro, is her father's main assistant in all the business of his office. Mrs. Wittingham has been elected postmaster of the State Senate several terms, and is at present employed in the U. S. branch mint in San Francisco.
One of the most meritorious and successful enterprises occupying the attention of the women of California, is the silk culture, which promises to develop into one of the dominant industries of the nation. Mrs. G. H. Hittel first brought the subject into public notice by able articles on the cultivation of the mulberry tree, published in various journals. In 1880 she formed the Ladies' Silk Culture Society of California. This association like its predecessor, the first Woman Suffrage Society, was organized and held its meetings in private parlors for a time, but it soon required more room. Men have been taken into membership since the object for which the society was formed seemed to be feasible, and, as a natural result, whatever of financial and honorary reward may be accorded the self-sacrificing women who performed the arduous and thankless labor of founding the institution, will be shared with the men who now come into the work.
During the session of the legislature of 1883, a committee was appointed to ask an appropriation from the State for the purpose of establishing a Filature or free silk-reeling school. After considerable delay the committee called to their aid Mrs. Gordon, and asked her to visit the State capital and see what could be done. The session was rapidly drawing to a close, and even the warmest friends of the measure feared that it was too late to accomplish anything. But happily the bill was got through both branches of the legislature and sent to the governor the last hour of the session. By its provisions a State Board of Silk Culture was created consisting of nine members, five of whom were to be women, and the sum of $7,500 was appropriated. Thus women have begun and are now fostering a great industrial enterprise which in the near future will give to millions of hitherto unemployed or ill-paid women and children an occupation peculiarly suited to them, and which will add millions of dollars annually to the revenue of the country. Mrs. Florence Kimball of San Diego county was appointed a member of the State Board of Silk Commissioners by Governor Stoneman in 1883.
Since the expiration of their term as superintendents of the public schools of the State, Dr. and Mrs. James Carr have made their home in that loveliest spot of southern California--Passadena, where, overlooking rich orange groves and luxurious vineyards, they enjoy the blessings of prosperity, and where Mrs. Carr, with her ambitious, active nature, finds congenial employment in demonstrating what woman can accomplish in silk-culture, raisin-making, and the crystalizing of fruit.
Miss Austen, formerly a teacher in the public schools of San Francisco, has a vineyard at Fresno, where she employs women and girls to prepare all her considerable crop of raisins for market, conceded to be of the best quality produced in the State. Mrs. Ellen McConnell Wilson of Sacramento county, from the small beginning, twenty years ago, of 320 acres of land, and less than 1,000 sheep, has now over 5,000 acres of rich farming land and 6,000 sheep. Mrs. H. P. Gregory of Sacramento, left a widow with a large family of little children, succeeded her husband in the shipping and commission business in which he was engaged on a small scale. From such a beginning, Mrs. Gregory has built up one of the largest trades in that city, and has by judicious investments in real estate acquired property of a value exceeding $100,000, besides having reared and educated her numerous family.
Mrs. Elizabeth Hill was one of the early settlers in Calaveras county, where her husband located land on the Mokelumne river near Camanche in 1855. Six years after she was left a widow with four little children. The support of the family devolved upon the mother, and she engaged in cultivating the land, adding thereto several hundred acres. In 1877 Mrs. Hill began the cultivation of the Persian-insect-powder plant, known to commerce as Buhach. So successful has this venture proved that she has now over 200 acres planted to that shrub, and manufactures each year about fifteen tons of the Buhach powder, for which she finds a ready sale. The number of women who have supported their families (often including the husband), and acquired a competency in boarding and lodging-house keeping, dressmaking, millinery, type-setting, painting, fancy work, stock-dealing, and even in manufacturing and mercantile pursuits, is legion.
In regard to the position of women in medicine, Miss Elizabeth Sargent, M. D., writes:
Women are admitted on equal terms with men to the medical and dental departments of the State University, and to the Cooper Medical College of San Francisco. Women are also eligible to membership in the State and various county medical associations, as well as in the dental association. There are in the State 73 women who have been recognized by the authorities as qualified to practice. They may be classified as follows: Practitioners of regular medicine, 30, 16 of whom are established in San Francisco; eclectics, 22, 9 in San Francisco; homoeopathists, 21, 2 in San Francisco. Among these physicians two make a specialty of the eye and ear, one in San Francisco and one in San Jose. Two women have been graduated from the State Dental College, located in San Francisco. In April, 1875, the Pacific Dispensary Hospital for women and children was founded by women. In 1881 a training-school for nurses was added. The hospital department, although admitting women, is intended especially for children, and is the only children's hospital on the coast. The dispensary is for out-patients, both women and children. The board of ten directors, the resident and attending physicians of the hospital, and five out of the seven connected with the dispensary are women. From a small beginning the institution has increased to importance, and bids fair to continue in its present prosperity and capacity for good work. I have written thus lengthily that you may see how energetic our women have been in originating and carrying on such an institution.
The most prominent literary woman of the coast is undoubtedly Miss M. W. Shinn. She is a graduate of our State University and was the medal scholar of her class. At present she is the editor of the Overland Monthly, and the excellent prospects of the magazine are largely the result of her own courage and the hard work she has done.
The higher education in the State is being put upon a secure basis. Hon. Leland Stanford and his wife, Jane Lathrop Stanford, have recently given a great part of their vast fortune for the establishment of a university which bids fair to be the foremost educational institution on the continent. In a letter specifying his views in regard to the management of the university, Governor Stanford says:
We deem it of the first importance that the education of both sexes shall be equally full and complete, varied only as nature dictates. The rights of one sex, political and other, are the same as those of the other sex, and this equality of rights ought to be fully recognized.
There are many men and women throughout the State who have faithfully advocated political equality for all citizens.[506]
Mendocino county has the honor of claiming as a citizen, one of the earliest and ablest women in this reform, Clarina Howard Nichols, who may be said to have sown the seeds of liberty in three States in which she has resided, Vermont, Kansas and California. Since 1870, her home has been with a son in Pomo, where she finished her heroic life January 11, 1885. Though always in rather straitened circumstances, Mrs. Nichols was uniformly calm and cheerful, living in an atmosphere above the petty annoyances of every-day life with the great souls of our day and generation, keeping time in the march of progress. She was too much absorbed in the vital questions of the hour even to take note of her personal discomforts. Many of her able articles published in magazines and the journals of the day, and letters from year to year to our conventions, were written in such conditions of weakness and suffering, as only a hero could have overcome. She was a good writer, an effective speaker, and a preeminently brave woman, gifted with that rarest of all virtues, common sense.
The advocacy of woman's rights began in Santa Cruz county, with the advent of that grand champion of her sex, the immortal Eliza Farnham, who braved public scorn and contumely because of her advanced views, for many years before the suffrage movement assumed organized form. Mrs. Farnham's work rendered it possible for those advocating woman suffrage years later, to do so with comparative immunity from public ridicule. A society was organized there in 1869, and Rev. D. G. Ingraham, E. B. Heacock, H. M. Blackburn, Mrs. Georgiana Bruce Kirby, Mrs. Van Valkenburgh, W. W. Broughton and wife, and Mrs. Jewell were active members.
Prominent in Santa Clara county is Mrs. Sarah Wallis of Mayfield. From the first agitation of the subject in 1868, when she entered heartily into the work of getting subscribers to The Revolution, she has been untiring in her efforts to advance the interests of women. A lady of fine presence, great energy and perseverance, Mrs. Wallis has been able to accomplish great good for her sex. With a large separate estate, when the statutes prevented her as a married woman from managing it, she determined that the laws should be changed, and never ceased her efforts until she succeeded in getting an amendment to the civil code which enables married women to make contracts. The most successful suffrage meetings ever held in Santa Clara county have been at Mayfield. There Mrs. Wallis and her husband, Judge Joseph S. Wallace, make their spacious and luxurious home the rendezvous of lecturers and writers in the great work of woman's emancipation.
Mrs. Sarah Knox Goodrich of San Jose, was among the first to see the significance of the movement for woman's rights in 1868. Her husband, William J. Knox, who shortly before his death had been State senator, secured the passage of a bill, drafted by himself, giving to married women the right to dispose of their own separate property by will. Having been from her youth the cherished companion of a man who believed in the equality of the sexes, and being herself a thoughtful, clear-headed person, she naturally took her place with those whose aim was the social and political emancipation of woman, and has stood from the first a tower of strength in this cause, giving largely of her wealth for the propagation of its doctrines. Mrs. Knox Goodrich has for many years paid her taxes, sometimes exorbitant, under protest, and at important elections has also offered her vote, to have it refused. The county suffrage society has had an untiring leader in Mrs. Goodrich, and on all occasions she has nerved the weak and encouraged the timid by her example of unflinching devotion. The following extracts from a letter written by the lady will show how effective her work has been:
In 1872, our society was invited to take part in the Fourth of July celebration, which we did, and had the handsomest carriages and more of them than any other society in the procession. We paid our own expenses, although the city had made an appropriation for the celebration. In 1876 we were not invited to take part in the festivities, but some of us felt that on such a day, our centennial anniversary, we should not be ignored. Accordingly I started out to see what could be done, but finding some of our most active friends ill and others absent from home, I decided to do what I could alone. I had mottoes from the grand declarations of the Fathers painted and put on my house, which the procession would pass on two sides.
Some of our most prominent ladies seeing that I was determined to make a manifestation, drove with me in the procession, our carriage and horses decorated with flags, the ladies wearing sashes of red, white and blue, and bearing banners with mottoes and evergreens. A little daughter of Mrs. Clara Foltz, the lawyer, dressed in red, white and blue, was seated in the center of the carriage, carrying a white banner with silver fringe, a small flag at the top with a silver star above that, with streamers of red, white and blue floating from it, and in the center, in letters large enough to be seen some distance, the one word "Hope." On my flag the motto was: "We are Taxed without being Represented"; Mrs. Maria H. Weldon's, "We are the disfranchised Class"; Mrs. Marion Hooker's, "The Class entitled to respectful Consideration"; and Miss Hannah Millard's, "We are governed without our Consent." On the front of my house in large letters was the motto: "Taxation without Representation is Tyranny as much in 1876, as it was in 1776"; on the other side was, "We are Denied the Ballot, but Compelled to Pay Taxes"; fronting the other side was, "Governments Derive their Just Powers from the Consent of the Governed." Mrs. McKee also had the last motto on her house. On the evening of July 3, after we had all our preparations completed, we sent to one of the marshals and asked him to give us a place in the procession next to the negroes, as we wished to let our legal protectors have a practical illustration of the position occupied by their mothers, wives, sisters and daughters in this boasted republic. We did want to go in, however, ahead of the Chinamen, as we considered our position at present to be between the two. The marshal willingly assigned us a place, but not the one we desired. "We cannot allow you," said he, "to occupy such a position. You must go in front, next to the Pioneer Association"; and being in part members of that society we accepted the decision. Our carriage was the center of attraction. Many, after reading our mottoes, said: "Well, ladies, we will help you to get your rights"; "It is a shame for you to be taxed and not have the right to vote." Hundreds of people stood and read the mottoes on the house, making their comments, both grave and gay: "Good for Mrs. Knox"; "She is right"; "If I were in her place I would never pay a tax"; "I guess one of the strong-minded lives here."
Mrs. Knox was married to Mr. Goodrich, the well-known architect, in 1878, in whom she has found a grand, noble-souled companion, fully in sympathy with all her progressive views, and with whom she is passing the advancing years of her well-spent life in luxury and unalloyed happiness.
Mrs. Van Valkenburg tried to vote under the claim that the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States entitled her to registration, and being refused, brought suit against the registrars. The case was decided against her after being carried to the Supreme Court of California. These cases argued in the Supreme Court have been of inestimable value in the progress of the movement, lifting the question of woman's rights as a citizen above the mists of ridicule and prejudice, into the region of reason and constitutional law. We cannot too highly appreciate the bravery and persistence of the few women who have furnished these test cases and compelled the highest courts to record their decisions.
FOOTNOTES:
[496] Having spent several days with Mrs. Schenck, in her cozy, artistic home surrounded with a hedge of brilliant geraniums, I can readily testify to the many virtues and attractions her large circle of friends has always accorded her. From all I had heard I was prepared to find Mrs. Schenck a woman of remarkable cultivation and research, and I was not disappointed. Refined, honorable in her feeling, clear in her judgments of men and measures, just and upright In all her words and actions, she was indeed the fitting leader for the uprising of women on the Pacific Slope. The preparation of this chapter occupied the last year of her life, her one wish to live was to complete the task, but when her failing powers made that impossible she charged her friend Mrs. Manning, with whom she resided, to take up the work that had fallen from her hands and make a fair record of all that had been done and said, by her noble coaedjutors, who had labored so faithfully to inaugurate the greatest reform of the century.--[E. C. S.
[497] Among them are Laura Fowler, Kate Kennedy, Mary N. Wadleigh, Trinity County; Anna L. Spencer, Alpine; Mrs. D. M. Coleman, Shasta; Miss A. L. Irish, Mono; Los Angeles City Board of Education has three women out of its five members, to-wit., Mrs. C. B. Jones (chairman), Mrs. M. A. Hodgkins (secretary), Mrs. M. Graham. Oakland Board, Miss A. Aldrich; Sacramento, Charlotte Slater; San Jose, Mrs. B. L. Hollenbeck. Sister Mary Frances of the order of "Sisters of Charity" came to California in 1849, and devoted her great energies, and rare accomplishments, to the cause of education up to the time of her demise in April, 1881. Annie Haven, Miss Prince, Miss Austin, and a host of others have been successful in the same field of labor, including Miss Merweidel, founder of the kindergarten system in San Francisco.
[498] Among them were Mrs. Sarah Wallis of Mayfield, Mrs. E. T. Schenck, Mrs. L. M. Clarke, Emily Pitts (afterwards Mrs. Stevens of San Francisco).
[499] President, Elizabeth T. Schenck; Vice-President, Emily Pitts Stevens; Recording Secretary, Mrs. Hutchinson; Corresponding Secretary, Mrs. Celia Curtis; Treasurer, Mrs. S. J. Corbett.
[500] The following persons were present: Mrs. E. T. Schenck, president of Woman Suffrage Associasion of San Francisco; Mrs. E. Pitts Stevens, Mrs. Celia Curtis, Mrs. Walton, Mrs. Watson, Mrs. S. J. Corbett, M. D.; Mary Collins, Mrs. E. P. Meade, M. D.; Mrs. Alpheus Bull, Mrs. James S. Bush, Mrs. S. M. Clarke, Mrs. Judge Shafter, Mrs. Judge Burke, Mrs. Thomas Varney, Mrs. R. B. Swain, Mrs. Carlton Curtis, Mrs. T. Richardson, Mrs. I. W. Hobson, Mrs. Smythe, Mrs. J. W. Stow, Mrs. C. G. Ames, Mrs. Barry and 30 others.
[501] Rev. C. G. Ames, San Francisco; Mrs. S. S. Allyn, Oakland; Mrs. Sarah Wallis, Mayfield; Mrs. Bowman, Sacramento; Mrs. Georgiana Bruce Kirby, Santa Cruz; Mrs. Fannie Kingsbury, San Diego; Mrs. Elmira Eddy, Nevada; Mrs. A. A. Haskell, Petaluma; Minnie H. McKee, Santa Clara.
[502] See Appendix to California chapter.
[503] At the close of the convention a State society was organized, with the following officers: President, Mrs. A. A. Haskell of Petaluma; Vice-Presidents, Mrs. J. W. McComb of San Francisco, Mrs. Denio of Solano, Mrs. Kingsbury of San Diego, Mrs. E. J. Hall of Los Angeles, Mrs. Eddy of Nevada, Mrs. Lewis of Sacramento, Mrs. Kirby of Santa Cruz, Mrs. Agnes Eager of Alameda, Mrs. Watkins of Santa Clara, Mrs. L. D. Latimer of Sonoma; Secretary, Mrs. Minnie McKee of Santa Clara. Board of Control, Mrs. C. H. Spear, Mrs. C. G. Ames, Mrs. Minnie Edwards, Mrs. Celia Curtis, Miss Laura Fowler, Mr. John A. Collins, Miss Kate Atkinson, Mrs. Pitts Stevens.
[504] Mrs. Kingsbury of San Diego, Mrs. H. F. M. Brown, Addie L. Ballou, Paulina Roberts, Mrs. C. H. Spear, Laura Cuppy Smith, Mrs. F. A. Logan, M. D., Mrs. C. M. Churchill, John A. Collins, and a large number of local speakers, who aided in organizing societies, or in keeping up the interest in those already formed.
[505] Chief among its contributors were Eliza W. Farnham, Sarah M. Clark, Amanda Simonton Page, Mrs. M. D. Strong, Fanny Green, Annie K. Fader, Eliza A. Pittsinger, Mrs. James Neal, Mrs. Elizabeth Williams.
[506] Among the many who have been active and faithful in the movement for the political rights of women, whose names should be mentioned, are: Mrs. Eliza Taylor, Mrs. O. Fuller, Elizabeth McComb, Dr. Laura P. Williams, Mrs. Dr. White, Sallie Hart, Dr. R. H. McDonald, Hon. Frank Pixley, and many others in San Francisco; Fanny Green McDougal, Oakland; Mrs. Phebe Benedict, Antioch; Mrs. Isabella Irwin, San Rafael; Mrs. Cynthia Palmer, Mrs. Emily Rolfe, Nevada City; Mrs. Elizabeth Condy, Stockton; Miss E. S. Sleeper, Mountain View; Mrs. Laura J. Watkins, Mrs. Damon, Santa Clara; Mrs. Dr. Kilpatrick, San Mateo; Mrs. S. G. Waterhouse, Drs. Kellogg and Bearby, Mrs. M. J. Young, Mrs. E. B. Crocker, and others, Sacramento; Mrs. Mary Jewett, Mr. and Mrs. Howell, Healdsburgh; Mrs. Lattimer, Windsor; Mr. and Mrs. Denio, Mrs. E. L. Hale, Vallejo; Mrs. J. Lewellyn, Mrs. Potter, St. Helena; Mr. and Mrs. J. Egglesson, Napa; Henry and Abigail Bush, Martinez; Rowena Granice Steele, Merced; Mrs. Jennie Phelps Purvis, Mrs. Lapham and daughter, Modesto.