The History of the Women's Suffrage: The Flame Ignites. Susan B. Anthony
Sheldon, Judge George A. Hickox, the Hon. Radcliffe Hicks, the Rev. John C. Kimball, the Hon. Henry Lewis, Judge M. H. Holcomb, ex-Speaker John H. Light, ex-Gov. Charles B. Andrews, the Hon. George M. Gunn, Miss Emily J. Leon and Mrs. Susan J. Cheney. Honorable mention might be made of many others who have spent time and money without stint in efforts to advance this cause.
199 In 1902 a revised State constitution was submitted and only 15 per cent. of the electors voted on it.
CHAPTER XXXI.
Dakota.
The Territory of Dakota was created in 1861, but in 1889 it entered the Union divided into two separate States, North and South Dakota. As early as 1872 the Territorial Legislature lacked only one vote of conferring the full suffrage on women. The sparsely settled country and the long distances made any organized work an impossibility, although a number of individuals were strong advocates of equal suffrage.
In 1879 it gave women the right to vote at school meetings. In 1883 a school township law was passed requiring regular polls and a private ballot instead of special meetings, which took away the suffrage from women in all but a few counties.
At the convening of the Territorial Legislature in January, 1885, Major J. A. Pickler (afterward member of Congress), without solicitation early in the session introduced a bill in the House granting Full Suffrage to women, as under the organic act the legislative body had the power to describe the qualifications for the franchise. The bill passed the House, February 11, by 29 ayes, 19 noes. Soon afterward it passed the Council by 14 ayes, 10 noes, and its friends counted the victory won. But Gov. Gilbert A. Pierce, appointed by President Arthur and only a few months in the Territory, failed to recognize the grand opportunity to enfranchise 50,000 American citizens by one stroke of his pen and vetoed the bill. Not only did it express the sentiment of the representatives elected by the voters, but it had been generally discussed by the press of the Territory, and all the newspapers but one were outspoken for it. An effort was made to carry it over the Governor's veto, but it failed.
In 1887 a law was passed enlarging the School Suffrage possessed by women and giving them the right to vote at all school elections and for all school officers, and also making them eligible to any elective school office. At this time, under the liberal provisions of the United States Land Laws, more than one-third of the land in the Territory was held by women.
In this same Legislature of 1887 another effort was made to pass an Equal Suffrage Bill, and a committee from the franchise department of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, consisting of Mesdames Helen M. Barker, S. V. Wilson and Alice M. A. Pickler, appeared before the committee and presented hundreds of petitions from the men and women of the Territory. The committees of both Houses reported favorably, but the bill failed by 13 votes in the House and 6 in the Council.
It was mainly through women's instrumentality that a local option bill was carried through this Legislature, and largely through their exertions that it was adopted by sixty-five out of the eighty-seven organized counties at the next general election.
In October, 1885, the American Woman Suffrage Association held a national convention in Minneapolis, Minn., which was attended by a number of people from Dakota, who were greatly interested. The next month the first suffrage club was formed, in Webster. Several local societies were afterwards started in the southern part of the Territory, but for five years no attempt was made at bringing these together in a convention.200
The long contention as to whether the Territory should come into the Union as one State or two was not decided until 1889, when Congress admitted two States. Thenceforth there were two distinct movements for woman suffrage, one in North and one in South Dakota.
NORTH DAKOTA.201
On July 4, 1889, a convention met at Bismarck to prepare a constitution for the admission of North Dakota as a State. As similar conventions were to be held in several other Territories, Henry B. Blackwell, editor of the Woman's Journal, came from Boston in the interest of woman suffrage. His object was to have it embodied in the constitution if possible, but failing in this he endeavored to have the matter left as it had been under the Territorial government, viz.: in the hands of the Legislature. To this end, H. F. Miller introduced the following clause:
The Legislature shall be empowered to make further extensions of suffrage hereafter at its discretion to all citizens of mature age and sound mind, not convicted of crime, without regard to sex, but it shall not restrict suffrage without a vote of the people.
Toward the adoption of this all efforts were directed. Two public meetings were addressed by Mr. Blackwell, and on July 8 the Constitutional Convention itself invited him to speak to its members.
After remaining in Bismarck two weeks he went to Helena to attend the Montana convention, but before leaving he succeeded in obtaining the promise of 30 votes out of the 38 necessary for the adoption of the clause. During his absence Dr. Cora Smith (Eaton), secretary of the Grand Forks Suffrage Club, was called to Bismarck to carry on the work. The secretary of the Territory, L. B. Richardson, placed at her service a room on the same floor as Convention Hall, and to this the friends of woman suffrage brought members who had not yet declared themselves in favor. Some ladies were always there to receive them and present the arguments in the case, among these Mrs. Mary Wilson, Mrs. George Watson, Dr. Kate Perkins and Mrs. Benjamin of Bismarck. Everything was managed with scrupulous formality and courtesy.
Mr. Miller's proposition was championed by R. M. Pollock and Judge John E. Carland in Committee of the Whole, and after a second reading was referred to the Committee on Elective Franchise, but on July 25 it reported the substitute of S. H. Moer, confining the suffrage to males. A minority report was offered, directing the Legislature at its first session to submit an amendment to the voters to enfranchise women. After a heated discussion the minority report was defeated, and the constitution provided as follows:
No law extending or restricting the right of suffrage shall be enforced until adopted by a majority of the electors of the State voting at a general election.
By requiring not merely a majority of those voting on the question but of the largest number voting at the election, no amendment for any purpose ever has been carried.
On the question of School Suffrage women received greater consideration, the constitution providing that all women properly qualified should vote for all school officers, including State Superintendent, also upon any question pertaining solely to school matters, and should be eligible to any school office.
Organization: The suffragists were widely scattered over this immense Territory and there had been little opportunity for organized work. In the spring of 1888 a call had been issued in Grand Forks, signed by seventy-five representative men and women, for a meeting to form an association, and on April 12 this was held in the court-house, which was crowded to the doors. The extension of the franchise to women was strongly advocated by Judge J. M. Cochrane, Prof. H. B. Wentworth, Mrs. Sara E. B. Smith, Mrs. Sue R. Caswell and others; and encouraging letters were read from the Hon. William Dudley Foulke, Lucy Stone and Julia Ward Howe of the American Suffrage Association. A public meeting on July 25 at the same place was addressed by Mrs. Ella M. S. Marble of Minnesota. On September 9 Mrs. Lillie Devereux Blake of New York gave a strong lecture.
Other local clubs were formed during the following years, and the first State convention was held in Grand Forks, Nov. 14, 15, 1895. It was called to order by Dr. Cora Smith Eaton, president of the local society. Mrs. Laura M. Johns of Kansas, a national organizer who had just made a successful lecturing tour of the State, was elected chairman and Mrs. Edwinna Sturman was made secretary. Cordial letters of greeting were read from