The History of Woman Suffrage Volume IV Part 128

The wages of the wife belong to the husband as part of the community property, whether she is living with him or separate from him.

Divorce is granted to the husband if the wife commit a single act of adultery; to the wife, only if the husband has abandoned her and lived in adultery with another. The law places the division of the property entirely in the hands of the judge, but provides that "nothing herein contained shall be construed to compel either party to divest himself or herself of real estate." Supreme Court decisions have laid down the general rule that separate property shall be restored to its owner.

Where there are no children the community property may be divided as in case of death. The court, however, may make such provision as it deems essential for the support of wife or children or an invalid husband. If necessary it may place separate or community property in the hands of trustees, the rents and profits to be applied to the maintenance and education of the children or the support of the wife.

The judge a.s.signs the children for their best interests. In general practice the mother, unless disqualified morally, retains the custody of female children of any age and of males to the age of eight, when they are usually given to the father. There is no absolute rule, and in case of children or property an appeal may be taken to a higher court.

The father is the natural guardian of the persons and education of the minor children, and is ent.i.tled to be appointed guardian of their estates.

The law of support, revised in 1895, provides that "if the husband fail to support the wife or children from the proceeds of the land _she_ may have or fail to educate the children as the fortune of the _wife_ would justify, she may in either case complain to the County Court, which upon satisfactory proof shall decree that so much of _her_ proceeds shall be paid to the wife for the support of herself and the education of the children as the court may deem necessary."[439]

SUFFRAGE: Women possess no form of suffrage.

OFFICE HOLDING: Most of the public offices have some women on their clerical force, that of the comptroller having seven. They are paid the same as men for the same work.

Women were postmasters of both Senate and House in the Legislature of 1900, and acted as clerks of committees.

They can serve as notaries public.

OCCUPATIONS: No profession or occupation is legally forbidden to women. They practice law and medicine, are managers of many kinds of business and proprietors of hotels, and two have been presidents of banks.

Mrs. Henrietta King is widely known as "the Cattle Queen of the World." Her ranch covers a million acres, and the net proceeds of her sales of horses and cattle are estimated at $500,000 a year. A number of women own and manage ranches.

EDUCATION: Most of the leading inst.i.tutions of learning are open to both s.e.xes. Among these are the State University, Baylor University (Baptist), Southwestern University (Methodist South), Fort Worth Polytechnic (Methodist Episcopal), Trinity University (c.u.mberland Presbyterian) and Wiley University (colored). Austin College and the State Agricultural and Mechanical College are restricted to male students.

The State Industrial College for Girls (white) was established by the Legislature of 1900, with an appropriation of $60,000. All of the industries will be taught, from domestic science to draughting. The W.

C. T. U. and others had been pet.i.tioning for this ten years.[440]

The Prairie View State Normal School for colored youth of both s.e.xes has had an Industrial Department from its beginning years ago. A movement is now on foot to establish such a department as a portion of the public school system. Austin already has one, made possible by legacy, and its fine results have greatly inspired the law-makers.

One woman has served as superintendent of schools at Waco, and there are many women princ.i.p.als of High Schools.

There are in the public schools 7,347 men and 7,672 women teachers.

The average monthly salary of the men is $49.20; of the women, $35.50.

Practically all of the progressive steps enumerated above have been taken since 1883. When it is remembered that less than twenty years ago women were virtually ostracized if they attempted any kind of occupation outside the home, even teaching being looked upon askance, the changes seem almost miraculous.

Texas has 130 Woman's Clubs with a membership of about 3,500. With other good works they have distributed great quant.i.ties of reading matter among isolated families. They also have established forty public libraries and four traveling libraries.

FOOTNOTES:

[437] The History is indebted for this chapter to Mrs. Helen M.

Stoddard of Fort Worth, president of the State Woman's Christian Temperance Union.

[438] Under the direction of Dr. Dabbs a Congress of Women was held in connection with the State Fair, and a Texas Woman's Council was formed, not committed to suffrage but progressive in its views.

[439] The lawyer who was consulted as to the accuracy of these statements said, after a careful examination: "There are so many other laws bearing upon each of these that all this is necessarily imperfect, but there is enough else, that is likewise true, to fill a book."

[440] In 1901 Mrs. Helen M. Stoddard was appointed by Gov. Joseph D.

Sayers a member of the committee to locate this school. The appointment was confirmed by the Senate, and the committee of twelve men elected her secretary. She received, of course, the same pay as the other members. Later three women were placed on the Board of Regents, herself among the number. [Eds.

CHAPTER LXVI.

UTAH.[441]

To write the history of woman suffrage in Utah one must turn backward to 1870, when the Legislature of the Territory pa.s.sed a bill conferring the franchise upon women, to which acting-Governor S. A.

Mann affixed his signature February 12. From that time women voted at all elections, while some of them took a practical interest in public matters and acted as delegates to political conventions and members of Territorial and county committees.

The first attempt to elect a woman to any important office was made in Salt Lake City at the county convention of 1878, when Mrs. Emmeline B.

Wells was nominated for treasurer. She received the vote of the entire delegation, but the statute including the word "male" was held to debar women from holding political offices. A bill was presented to the next Legislature with pet.i.tions numerously signed asking that this word be erased from the statutes, which was pa.s.sed. Gov. George W.

Emory, however, refused to sign it, and though other Legislatures pa.s.sed similar bills by unanimous vote, none ever received his signature or that of any succeeding governor.

In June, 1871, Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Miss Susan B. Anthony, the president and vice-president-at-large of the National Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation, stopped at Salt Lake City on their way to the Pacific Coast and met many of the prominent men and women.

In 1872 the _Woman's Exponent_ was established, and it is impossible to estimate the advantage this little paper gave to the women of this far western Territory. From its first issue it was the champion of the suffrage cause, and by exchanging with women's papers of the United States and England it brought news of women in all parts of the world to those of Utah. They also were thoroughly organized in the National Woman's Relief Society, a charitable and philanthropic body which stood for reform and progress in all directions. Through such an organization it was always comparatively easy to promote any specific object or work. The Hon. George Q. Cannon, Utah's delegate in the '70's, coming from a Territory where women had the ballot, interested himself in the suffrage question before Congress. He thus became acquainted with the prominent leaders of the movement, who went to Washington every winter and who manifested much interest in the women afar off in possession of the rights which they themselves had been so long and zealously advocating without apparent results. Among these were Mrs. Stanton, Miss Anthony, Mrs. Isabella Beecher Hooker and others of national reputation.

Women were appointed as representatives from Utah by the National Suffrage a.s.sociation, and the correspondence between its officers and Mrs. Wells, who had been made a member of their Advisory Committee and vice-president for the Territory, as well as the fact that the women of Utah were so progressive on the suffrage question and had sent large pet.i.tions asking for the pa.s.sage of a Sixteenth Amendment to the Federal Const.i.tution to enfranchise all women, resulted in an invitation for her to attend its annual convention at Washington, in January, 1879. Mrs. Wells was accompanied by Mrs. Zina Young Williams and they were cordially welcomed by Mrs. Stanton and Miss Anthony.

This was a valuable experience for these women, as, even though they had the right of suffrage, there was much to learn from the great leaders who had been laboring in the cause of woman's enfranchis.e.m.e.nt for more than thirty years. They were invited to address the convention, and selected with others to go before Congressional committees and the President of the United States, as well as to present important matters to the Lady of the White House. The kindness which they received from Mrs. Hayes and other noted women always will remain a pleasant memory of that first visit to the national capitol.

On their return home they took up the subject of the ballot more energetically in its general sense than ever before through public speaking and writing.

During the seventeen years, from 1870 to 1887, that the women of Utah enjoyed the privilege of the ballot several attempts were made to deprive them of it. In 1880 a case came before the Supreme Court of the Territory on a mandamus requiring the a.s.sessor and registrar to erase the names of Emmeline B. Wells, Maria M. Blythe and Cornelia Paddock from the registration list, also the names of all other women before a certain specified date, but the court decided in favor of the defendants.

In the spring of 1882 a convention was held to prepare a const.i.tution and urge Congress to admit Utah as a State. Three women were elected--Mrs. Sarah M. Kimball, Mrs. Elizabeth Howard and Mrs.

Wells--and took part in framing this const.i.tution, and their work was as satisfactory as that of the male members. Although this was a new departure, it caused no friction whatever and was good political discipline for the women, especially in parliamentary law and usage.

This year another case was brought, before the Third District Court, to test the validity of the statute conferring the elective franchise upon the women of the Territory. A registrar of Salt Lake City refused to place the names of women upon the list of voters, and Mrs. Florence L. Westcott asked for a writ compelling him to administer the oath, enter her name, etc. The case was called for argument Sept. 14, 1882, Chief Justice James A. Hunter on the bench, and able lawyers were employed on both sides of the question. The decision sustained the Legislative Act of 1870 under which women voted. a.s.sociate Justice Emerson agreed with Judge Hunter, and a.s.sociate Justice Twiss acknowledged the validity of the law, but insisted that women should be taxpayers to ent.i.tle them to the right. This test case decided all others and women continued to vote until the pa.s.sage of the Edmunds-Tucker Law, in March, 1887. During this period women gained much political experience in practical matters, and their a.s.sociation with men acquainted with affairs of State, in council and on committees gave them a still wider knowledge of the manipulation of public affairs.

In September, 1882, the National W. S. A. held a conference in Omaha, Neb., and Mrs. Wells and Mrs. Zina D. H. Young attended. Miss Anthony, Mrs. May Wright Sewall, chairman of the Executive Committee, and many other distinguished women were in attendance. Mrs. Wells, as vice-president for Utah, presented an exhaustive report of the suffrage work in the Territory, which was received with a great deal of enthusiasm.

At the national convention in Washington the previous January the proposed disfranchis.e.m.e.nt of Utah women by the Edmunds Bill had been very fully discussed and a resolution adopted, that "the proposition to disfranchise the women of Utah for no cause whatever is a cruel display of the power which lies in might alone, and that this Congress has no more right to disfranchise the women of Utah than the men of Wyoming."[442] This sympathy was gratefully acknowledged by the women of the Territory.

The suffrage women throughout the various States made vigorous protests against the injustice of this pending measure. A committee appointed at the convention in Washington, in the winter of 1887, presented a memorial to the President of the United States requesting him not to sign the bills, but to veto any measure for the disfranchis.e.m.e.nt of the women of Utah.[443] Mrs. Belva A. Lockwood made an able speech before the convention on this question. There were at that time several bills before Congress to deprive Utah women of the elective franchise.

During the subsequent years of this agitation every issue of the _Woman's Exponent_ contained burning articles, letters and editorials upon this uncalled-for and unwarranted interference with the affairs of the women of this Territory. The advocates of the rights of all women stood up boldly for those of Utah, notwithstanding the scoffs and obloquy cast upon them. It was a fierce battle of opinions and the weaker had to succ.u.mb. The strong power of Congress conquered at last, and the Edmunds-Tucker Act of 1887 wrested from all the women, Gentile and Mormon alike, the suffrage which they had exercised for seventeen years. Naturally they were very indignant at being arbitrarily deprived of a vested right, but were obliged to submit. They were determined, however, not to do so tamely but to teach their sons, brothers and all others the value of equal suffrage, and to use every effort in their power toward securing it whenever Statehood should be conferred.

Mrs. Arthur Brown and Mrs. Emily S. Richards were appointed to represent the Territory at the National Suffrage Convention in Washington in 1888, and were there authorized to form an a.s.sociation uniform with those in various States and Territories. Heretofore it had not been considered necessary to organize, as women were already in possession of the ballot.

Mrs. Elizabeth Lyle Saxon and Mrs. Clara Bewick Colby, who had been lecturing on suffrage in Oregon and Washington, visited Salt Lake in September, 1888. They spoke in the theater, and on the following day a reception was tendered them in the Gardo House, where they had the opportunity of meeting socially between five and six hundred people, both Gentiles and Mormons, men and women. The same evening another large audience in the theater greeted them, and on the day succeeding at 10 A. M. there was a meeting for women only in the a.s.sembly Hall.

These meetings were held under the auspices of the Woman's Relief Society, Mrs. Zina D. H. Young, president. Though they occurred at a time when the people were suffering from indignities heaped upon them because of unjust legislation, yet a strong impression was made on those (mostly Gentiles) who never previously had been converted to suffrage.

After careful deliberation and several preliminary meetings in the office of the _Woman's Exponent_, a public call was made through the daily papers, signed by the most influential women of Salt Lake City, for a meeting in the a.s.sembly Hall, Jan. 10, 1889, to organize a Territorial Suffrage a.s.sociation. Mrs. Richards occupied the chair and Mrs. Lydia D. Alder was elected secretary _pro tem_. Prayer was offered and the old-fashioned hymn, "Know this that every soul is free," was sung by the congregation.[444] One hundred names were enrolled and Mrs. Caine and Mrs. Richards were elected delegates to the National Convention. Mrs. Caine was already at the Capital with her husband, the Hon. John T. Caine, Utah's delegate in the House of Representatives. Mrs. Richards arrived in time to give a report of the new society, which was heard with much interest.

Within a few months fourteen counties had auxiliary societies.