Volume IV Part 77 (1/2)

In the public schools there are 4,168 men and 4,811 women teachers. It is impossible to obtain the average monthly salaries, but those of women are estimated to be two-thirds of those paid to men.

FOOTNOTES:

[220] The History is indebted for the material for this chapter to Mrs. Mary L. McLendon, of Atlanta, honorary president of the State Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation.

[221] See Chap. XV.

[222] The State a.s.sociation never should cease to be grateful to ”the Howard girls,” (Augusta, Claudia and Mrs. Miriam Howard Du Bose), as the national officers called them, who brought this grand object lesson to Georgia to give Southern women the advantages which they themselves had enjoyed the previous year in Was.h.i.+ngton, D. C. They refused all proffered aid and themselves paid the expenses, which amounted to $600, declaring that it was only right for them to do so, since they had consulted no one when they gave the invitation at Was.h.i.+ngton but had taken the full responsibility.

[223] William C. Sibley, Will N. Harben, G. Gunby Jordan, Walter H.

Johnson, J. Colton Lynes, Charles Hubner, Lucian Knight, editor of the _Const.i.tution_, and Walter B. Hill, chancellor of the State University, all have declared in favor of woman suffrage. Mrs. Julia I. Patten, editor of the _Sat.u.r.day Review_, is a member of the Atlanta a.s.sociation and her paper is its official organ.

Among others who have stood by a cause which it requires courage to advocate in this State are J. H. and Mrs. Addie D. Hale, W. T. Cheney, S. M. White and William Forsyth; Mesdames Harriet Winch.e.l.l, A. H.

Ames, Mary Brent Reid, Harry Dewar, Nettie C. Hall, Francis Bellamy, A. G. Helmer, Sara Strahan, M. T. Wynne, Sarah McDonald Sheridan, Patrick H. Moore, E. A. Latimer, E. A. Corrigan, Charles Behre and Dr.

Schuman; Misses Mary Lamar Jackson, editor of the woman's department in the Atlanta _Journal_, E. Williams, Willette Allen and Sarah Freeman Clarke, sister of James Freeman Clarke, of Boston.

[224] This certainly proved that woman suffrage had gained at least in respectful consideration among politicians since February, 1895. At that time Gov. W. Y. Atkinson refused the use of the same hall for the great National a.s.sociation to hold a ma.s.s meeting on the last day of its visit to Atlanta. He declared it would be unconst.i.tutional to allow women to use it, although white and negro men had been permitted to do so for many and varied purposes. The Hon. Charles A. Collier, a county commissioner, granted the bas.e.m.e.nt of the courthouse for this meeting, which was a marked success, though held underground. Speeches were made by Miss Susan B. Anthony, Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, Mrs.

Elizabeth Lyle Saxon, Mrs. Josephine K. Henry and others.

[225] Officers elected: President, Mrs. Gertrude C. Thomas; vice-presidents, Mrs. S. L. Ober Allen, Miss Sarah A. Gresham; corresponding secretary, Mrs. Alice Daniel; recording secretary, Mrs.

Claudia Howard Maxwell; treasurer, Mrs. E. O. Archer; auditor, D. M.

Allen. Mrs. McLendon, who had been in office since 1892, refused to serve longer and was made honorary president.

[226] A bill presented by Thomas J. Chappelle in 1901 to make the University co-educational was defeated in the Senate and not considered in the House. Virginia and Louisiana are the only other States which exclude women, although North Carolina admits them only to its post-graduate department.

[227] A bill providing for the teaching of the effects of alcoholic drinks and other narcotics upon the system, requiring all teachers to stand an examination on this subject, and affixing a penalty for the failure of any board of education to enforce the law, pa.s.sed the Legislature of 1901--Senate, 23 ayes, 7 nays; House, 106 ayes, 28 nays. It was signed by Gov. Allan C. Candler, December 17.

This law is now in effect in every State, Georgia being the last to adopt it.

[228] The Atlanta South Side W. C. T. U. is the only one in the State to adopt the franchise department. Mrs. Isabella Webb Parks, one of the editors of the _Union Signal_ and also a member of the city suffrage a.s.sociation, is its superintendent of franchise.

[229] In August, 1901, a police matron was at last appointed at a salary of $30 per month. In December one of the police commissioners stated that she was invaluable and he did not see how they ever had managed to get on without a matron.

CHAPTER x.x.xVI.

IDAHO.[230]

Idaho was admitted into the Union as a State in 1890. Previous to this time there had been practically no work done for woman suffrage in the Territory except that of Mrs. Abigail Scott Duniway of Oregon. Between 1876 and 1895 she gave 140 public lectures, at the same time securing subscribers to her paper, the _New Northwest_, devoted to the interests of women, and distributing literature. She traveled 12,000 miles by river, rail, stage and buckboard and canva.s.sed many a mile on foot.

In 1887 Mrs. Duniway addressed the Territorial Legislature in behalf of a bill to enfranchise women. In 1889 she appealed to the const.i.tutional convention at Boise to adopt a woman suffrage clause.

Judge William H. Claggett, the president, and a majority of the members favored it, but yielded to the fears of the minority that it would endanger the acceptance of the const.i.tution by the voters.

Judge Milton Kelly, founder and for many years editor of the Boise _Daily Statesman_, was one of the early advocates of the rights of women, as also was his wife, who was, indeed, the pioneer suffragist of Idaho. Mrs. Rebecca Mitch.e.l.l, president of the State Woman's Christian Temperance Union, was another early laborer. At her request Louis E. Workman introduced a bill into the House of the Legislature of 1893, asking for a const.i.tutional amendment conferring suffrage on women, and it was defeated by only two votes.

In a little country schoolhouse, May 16, 1893, at Hagerman, Lincoln County, the first suffrage society was formed. The teacher, Mrs.

Elizabeth Ingram, was president and prime mover, and its members were scattered over a territory of ten miles.