Volume III Part 109 (1/2)
Roland, Cherryvale; Judge Lorenzo Westover, Clyde; Mr. V. P.
Wilson, Abilene; Hon. Albert Griffin, Manhattan; Mrs. A. O.
Carpenter, Emporia; Mrs. n.o.ble Prentis, Atchison; Mrs. S. S. Moore, Burden; Mrs. Emma Faris, Carnerio; Mrs. Houghton and Mrs. Farrer, Arkansas City; Mrs. Finley, Topeka.
[479] The towns visited were: Beloit, Lincoln Center, Wilson, Ellsworth, Salina, Solomon City, Minneapolis, c.a.w.ker City and Clyde. The officers of the Topeka society were: _President_, Mrs.
Priscilla Finley; _Secretary_, Mrs. E. G. Hammon; _Treasurer_, Mrs.
Sarah Smith. The officers of Beloit were: _President_, Mrs. H.
Still; _Vice-Presidents_, Mrs. J. M. Patten, Mrs. M. Vaughan; _Corresponding Secretary_, Mrs. F. J. Knight; _Recording Secretary_, Mary Charlesworth; _Treasurer_, Mrs. M. Bailey. At Salina, Mrs. Johns and Mrs. Christina Day are the officers.
[480] The women of Kansas should never forget that to the influence of Mrs. Nichols in the Const.i.tutional convention at Wyandotte, they owe the modic.u.m of justice secured by that doc.u.ment. With her knitting in hand, she sat there alone through all the sessions, the only woman present, watching every step of the proceedings, and laboring with members to so frame the const.i.tution as to make all citizens equal before the law. Though she did not accomplish what she desired, yet by her conversations with the young men of the State, she may be said to have made the idea of woman suffrage seem practicable to those who formed the const.i.tution and statute laws of that State.--[E. C. S.
[481] See compiled laws of Kansas, 79, page 378, chapter x.x.xIII.
[482] Miss Flora M. Wagstaff of Paoli was among the first to practice law in Kansas. In 1881, Ida M. Tillotson of Mill Brook, and in 1884, Maria E. DeGeer were admitted.
[483] The names of representatives voting for the committee stand as follows: _Yeas_--Barnes, Beattie, Bollinger, Bond, Bonebrake, Brewster, Buck, b.u.t.terfield, Caldwell, Campbell, Carter, Clogston, J. B. Cook of Chetopa, H. C. Cook of Oswego, Collins, c.o.x, Currier, Davenport, d.i.c.kson, Edwards, Faulkner, Gillespie, Glasgow, Gray, Grier, Hargrave, Hatfield, Hogue, Hollenshead, Holman, Hopkins, Hostetler, Johnson of Ness City, Johnson of Marshall, Johnson of Topeka, Johnson (Speaker of the House), Kelley of c.a.w.ker City, King, Kreger, Lawrence, Lewis, Loofburrow, Lower, McBride, McNall, McNeal, Matlock, Maurer, Miller, Moore, Morgan of Clay, Morgan of Osborne, Mosher, Osborn, Patton, Pratt, Reeves, Rhodes, Roach, Roberts, Slavens, Spiers, Simpson, Smith of McPherson, Smith of Neosho, Stewart, Stine, Sweezy, Talbot, Vance, Veach, Wallace, Wentworth, Wiggins, Willhelm--75. The names of senators were: _Yeas_--Bowden, Congdon, Donnell, Edmunds, Granger, Hicks, Humphrey, Jennings, M. B. Kelley, Kellogg, Kimball, Kohler, Pickler, Ritter, Rush, Shean, Sheldon, White, Young--19.
[484] The Committee on the Political Rights of Women, granted by the House, were: George Morgan of Clay, George Seitz of Ellsworth, David Kelso of Labette, F. W. Rash of Butler, W. C. Edwards of p.a.w.nee, F. J. Kelley of Mitch.e.l.l, W. H. Deckard of Doniphan.
[485] The speakers were: Rev. Amanda May (formerly of Indiana), Mrs. Martha L. Berry, Mrs. Ada Sill, Mrs. Colby, Dr. Addie Kester, Mrs. M. D. Vale, Rev. C. H. Rogers, Mrs. De Geer, Miss Jennie Newby. Officers: _President_, Mrs. Anna C. Wait of Lincoln; _Vice-President_, Mrs. Laura M. Johns of Salina; _Treasurer_, Mrs.
Martia L. Berry of c.a.w.ker City; _Corresponding Secretary_, Mrs. B.
H. Ellsworth of Lincoln; _Recording Secretary_, Mrs. Alice G. Bond of Salina.
[486] When Miss Anthony and I went through Kansas in 1867 we held an afternoon and evening meeting in Salina. Our accommodations at the hotel were wretched beyond description. Mother Bickerd.y.k.e was just preparing to open her hotel but was still in great confusion.
Hearing of our dismal quarters she came and took us to her home, where her exquisitely cooked food and clean beds redeemed in a measure our dolorous impressions of Salina. Our meetings were held in an unfinished church without a floor, the audience sitting on the beams, our opponents (two young lawyers) and ourselves on a few planks laid across, where a small stand was placed and one tallow candle to lighten the discussion that continued until a late hour.
Being delayed the next day at the depot a long time waiting for the train we held another prolonged discussion with these same sprigs of the legal profession. We had intended to go on to Ellsworth, but hearing of trouble there with the Indians we turned our faces eastward. Mother Bickerd.y.k.e and her thrilling stories of the war are the pleasant memories that still linger with us of Salina.--[E.
C. S.
CHAPTER 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--Const.i.tutional Convention--Efforts to Strike Out the Word ”Male”--Convention to Discuss Woman Suffrage--School Suffrage Accorded--State a.s.sociation 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 canva.s.sing 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 hards.h.i.+ps 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 wors.h.i.+p 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 members.h.i.+p 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 hoa.r.s.e 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 a.s.sembly, 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: