Volume IV Part 106 (1/2)

OFFICE HOLDING: The const.i.tution provides that ”all qualified electors, and no others, shall be eligible to office.”

In the const.i.tutional convention of 1890 Jordan L. Morris offered a resolution ”that the Legislature may make women, with such qualifications as may be prescribed, competent to hold the office of county superintendent of schools.” This amendment was tabled. J. W.

Cutrer submitted a section ”making eligible to all offices connected with the public schools, except that of State Superintendent of Public Education, all women of good moral character, twenty-five years or upwards of age,” which was not favorably reported. A clause was introduced by W. B. Eskridge making ”any white woman twenty-one years old, who has been a _bona fide_ citizen of the State two years before her election, and who shall be of good moral character,” eligible to the office of chancery or circuit clerk; and another, that ”any white woman, etc., shall be qualified to hold the office of keeper of the Capitol and State librarian.”

The last office, as recommended in a separate measure by George G.

Dillard, which was adopted, is the only one to which women are specifically eligible, but none has held it.

In some counties the const.i.tution has been liberally interpreted to make women eligible to serve on school boards; this, however, is regulated usually by the judgment of the county superintendent. Women are elected to such positions occasionally in the smaller towns.

The code of 1892 created the text-book committee, whose duty is to adopt a uniform series of books for use in the public schools of a county. An official record is kept of its specific functions, all members being required to ”take the oath of office,” etc., and thus const.i.tuted public officers according to a recent ruling of the Attorney-General. The majority of these committees are women teachers, appointed by the county superintendents, but no provision has been made for their remuneration.

Women can not serve as notaries public.

OCCUPATIONS: No profession or occupation is legally forbidden to women. They are licensed to practice medicine, dentistry and pharmaceutics. It is believed that the statute would be construed to enable them to practice law, but the test has not been made. Several women own and manage newspapers.

EDUCATION: The State University has been open to women for twenty years, and annually graduates a number. Millsaps College, a leading inst.i.tution for men, has recently admitted a few women to its B. A.

course, and this doubtless will become a fixed policy. The Agricultural and Mechanical College and the State Normal School (both colored) are co-educational. Several women hold college professors.h.i.+ps.

In the public schools there are 3,645 men and 4,254 women teachers: The average monthly salary of the men is $32.18; of the women, $26.69.

The State Federation of Women's Clubs was organized in 1897 and has a members.h.i.+p of fifteen societies.

Women have never actively partic.i.p.ated in public campaigns except in local politics where the liquor question has been the paramount issue.

Miss Belle Kearney is a temperance lecturer of national reputation, and a p.r.o.nounced advocate of woman suffrage.

FOOTNOTES:

[347] The History is indebted for this chapter to Mrs. Hala Hammond b.u.t.t of Clarksdale, president of the State Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation and editor of the _Challenge_, a county paper.

[348] Officers elected: President, Mrs. Hala Hammond b.u.t.t; vice-president, Mrs. Fannie Clark; corresponding secretary, Mrs.

Harriet B. Kells; recording secretary, Mrs. Rebecca Roby; treasurer, Miss Mabel Pugh. Other officers have been Miss Belle Kearney and Mesdames Nellie Nugent, Charlotte L. Pitman and Pauline Alston Clark.

[349] Any munic.i.p.ality of 300 or more inhabitants may be declared a ”separate school district” by an ordinance of the mayor or board of aldermen if it maintain a free public school at least seven months in each year. Four months is the ordinary public term, the additional three months' school being supported by special taxation. Thus as soon as a woman has to pay a special tax she is deprived of a vote.

CHAPTER XLIX.

MISSOURI.[350]

The movement toward equal suffrage in Missouri must always recognize as its founder Mrs. Virginia L. Minor. She was a thorough believer in the right of woman to the franchise, and at the November election of 1872 offered her own vote under the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Federal Const.i.tution. It was refused; she brought suit against the inspectors and carried her case to the Supreme Court of the United States, where it was argued with great ability by her husband, Francis Minor, but an adverse decision was rendered.[351]

The first suffrage a.s.sociation in the State was organized at St. Louis in the winter of 1867. Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Miss Susan B.

Anthony lectured under its auspices at Library Hall in the autumn of that year, and a reception was given them in the parlors of the Southern Hotel. For many years meetings were held with more or less regularity, Mrs. Minor was continued as president and some legislative work was attempted.

On Feb. 8, 9, 1892, an interstate woman suffrage convention was held in Kansas City. Mrs. Laura M. Johns, president of the Kansas a.s.sociation, in the chair. Mrs. Minor, Mrs. Beverly Allen and Mrs.

Rebecca N. Hazard were made honorary presidents and Mrs. Virginia Hedges was elected president. Addresses were given by Mrs. Clara C.