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.

46

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 benificent 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.

The Hour Not Yet.

725 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 metevery 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.

CHAPTER 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 PressJudge Howe's Letter-Laramie Sentinel-J. H. Heyford-Women Voting, 1870 -Grandma Swain the First to Cast her Ballot-Effort to Repeal the Law, 1871Gov. 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

Results in England and in America.

727 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 universites at home.

Our battles in Parliament and in the Congress of the United States were simultaneous. While nine senators,* 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.

* Messrs. Wade, Anthony, Gratz Brown, Buckalew, Cowan, Foster, Nesmith, Patterson, Riddle. See Vol. II., Chapter XVII.

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 interfer. ence 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 abol

ished.

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 or