The History of Woman Suffrage Volume IV Part 139

A married woman may sue and be sued, make contracts and carry on business in her own name.

The father is the guardian of the minor children, and at his death the mother. There is no law requiring a husband to support his family.[482]

The "age of protection" for girls was raised from 10 to 14 years in 1882, and from 14 to 18 in 1890. The penalty varies from imprisonment for one year to life. Seduction under promise of marriage up to the age of 21 years is a penitentiary offense. Male and female habitues of a house of ill-repute are considered guilty of the same offense, but the man is liable for a fine of $100 and imprisonment for sixty days, while the woman is liable for only half this punishment.

SUFFRAGE: Women have had the Full Franchise since 1869.

No separate record is kept of their votes, as they have exercised the suffrage so long that this would seem no more necessary than to keep one of the men's votes. The census of 1900 gives the percentage of men in the State as 63 (in round numbers) and of women as 37. The estimate of those who are best informed is that 90 per cent. of the women who are eligible use the suffrage.

OFFICE HOLDING: Since the organization of the Territory in 1869 women have been eligible to all official positions, but there never has been any scramble for office.

No woman ever has served in the Legislature.

Miss Estelle Reel was State Superintendent of Public Instruction for four years. She is now National Superintendent of Indian Schools, appointed by President William McKinley, and has 300 of these under her charge.

Miss Grace Raymond Hebard is librarian of the State University, and for the past ten years has filled the position of secretary of the board of trustees, upon which women serve.

Miss Bertha Mills is clerk of the State Land Board, with a salary equal to that of any clerk or deputy in the State House.

Miss Rose Foote was a.s.sistant clerk in the House of Representatives of the last Legislature, and as a reader she left nothing to be desired.

Women frequently serve as legislative enrolling clerks. There have been women clerks of the courts.

Women hold several important clerkships in the State Capitol and are found as stenographers, etc., in all the State, county and munic.i.p.al offices.

In many districts they serve on the school board, and nearly all of the counties elect them to the responsible position of superintendent.

As such they conduct the inst.i.tutes, examine teachers and have a general supervision of the schools.

OCCUPATIONS: The only industry legally forbidden to women is that of working in mines.

EDUCATION: All educational advantages are the same for both s.e.xes.

By a law of 1869 Wyoming requires equal pay for men and women in all employment pertaining to the State. This includes the public schools, in which there are 102 men and 434 women teachers. But here as elsewhere the men hold the higher positions and their average monthly salary is $60.40, while that of the women is $42.86.

FOOTNOTES:

[471] The History is indebted to the Hon. Robert C. Morris of Cheyenne, clerk of the Supreme Court of Wyoming, for much of the information contained in this chapter.

[472] Mrs. Morris is the mother of Robert C. Morris, and this paragraph is inserted by the editors. A full account of this first experiment in woman suffrage will be found in Vol. III, Chap. LII.

[473] Published in full in Wyoming Historical Collections, Vol. I.

[474] In an address Mr. Carey said later: "I was agreeably surprised to have so many of the ablest men in Congress, both in public and in private conversation, disclose the fact that they firmly believed the time would come when women would be permitted to exercise full political rights throughout the United States."

[475] See laws for women in Tennessee chapter.

[476] Miss Susan B. Anthony was an interested and anxious listener to this debate from the gallery of the House, and a joyful witness to the final pa.s.sage of the bill.

[477] See laws for women in Texas chapter.

[478] In 1901, when a convention in Alabama was framing a new const.i.tution, Senator Morgan sent a strong letter urging that this should include suffrage for tax-paying women.

[479] A telegram announcing that President Harrison had signed the bill was handed to Miss Anthony while she was addressing a large audience at Madison, S. D., during the woman suffrage campaign in that State, and those who were present say, "She spoke like one inspired."

By request of Miss Anthony and Lucy Stone, officers of the National W.

S. A., the woman suffrage clubs of the entire country celebrated on the Fourth of July the admission into the Union of the first State with the full franchise for women, and an address from Mrs. Stanton was read--Wyoming the First Free State for Women.

[480] From 1876 to 1883 Edgar Wilson Nye (Bill Nye) was editor of the Laramie _Boomerang_, in which he published the following as the result of his eight years' observation of woman's voting:

"Female suffrage, I may safely and seriously a.s.sert, according to the best judgment of the majority in Wyoming Territory, is an unqualified success. An effort to abolish it would be at once hooted down. Its princ.i.p.al opposition comes from those who do not know anything about it. I do not hesitate to say that Wyoming is justly proud because it has thus early recognized woman and given her a chance to be heard.

While she does not seek to hold office or act as juror, she votes quietly, intelligently and pretty independently. Moreover, she does not recognize the machine at all, seldom goes to caucuses, votes for men who are satisfactory, regardless of the ticket, and thus scares the daylights out of rings and machines."

[481] See Appendix--Testimony from Woman Suffrage States.

[482] When the attention of a distinguished jurist of Wyoming was called to these laws he said the question never had been raised, but there would be no objection to changing them.

CHAPTER LXXIII.

GREAT BRITAIN.

EFFORTS FOR THE PARLIAMENTARY FRANCHISE.[483]

BY MISS HELEN BLACKBURN, EDITOR OF THE ENGLISHWOMAN'S REVIEW, LONDON.

The chapter on Great Britain contributed by Miss Caroline Ashurst Biggs to Vol. III of this History of Woman Suffrage brought the story down to the pa.s.sage of the Representation-of-the-People Act of 1884 which extended Household Suffrage to the Counties and created the Service Franchise, thus giving the ballot to a large number of agricultural labourers and men who had their residence on premises of which their employers paid the rent and taxes, but which still left all such women without any franchise whatsoever.

With the pa.s.sing of that Act may be said to have begun a new phase in the movement. During the '70's there had been a debate and division on the Women's Suffrage Bill in the House of Commons nearly every year.

After the General Election of 1880 the question of Household Suffrage in the Counties came to the front, and all the efforts of the Women's Suffrage Societies were directed and inspired by the antic.i.p.ation that when the claims of the agricultural labourer were dealt with, those of women would find their opportunity. But far from this, they were left practically in a worse position than before, for now 2,000,000 new voters were added to the number of those who could make prior claim to the attention of their representatives.

_1885._--Immediately after the General Election which followed the pa.s.sing of the new Reform Bill, Mr. Gladstone gave notice of his Bill for Home Rule for Ireland and the party feeling aroused was of such intensity that the Liberal party was cloven in twain. The Women's Suffrage movement was affected by the keen party strife, in which women were as deeply interested as men, and the question of their enfranchis.e.m.e.nt was no longer the only rallying point for their political activity. This period is marked by a rapid development of organisations amongst women for party purposes. In the Primrose League, which had been started in 1883, women had been a.s.signed unprecedented recognition as co-operating with men on equal footing for political purposes. It does not promote special measures but lays down for its principle the Maintenance of Religion, of the Estates of the Realm and of the Imperial Ascendancy of the British Empire, thus indicating its Conservative tendency. The Women's Liberal Federation, founded in 1885 to promote liberal principles, endeavours to further special measures. The Women's Liberal Unionist a.s.sociation founded in 1888 had for its princ.i.p.al object the defence of the legislative union between England and Ireland.

Thus women entered actively into the work of the three respective parties, and this re-acted in various ways on the Women's Suffrage propaganda. It might seem that this had a depressing effect, for the rigid neutrality in regard to party which always had characterised the National Societies for Women's Suffrage might easily seem dull and tame to the ardent party enthusiasts, and many of the Liberal women threw their energies by preference into the Women's Liberal a.s.sociations, but the old charge that women had no interest in politics, now received its complete quietus. It seems indeed a far cry from the manners of sixty years ago, when to talk politics to a woman was considered rude, to the manners of to-day when the Primrose League balances its 75,000 Knights with 63,000 Dames, besides a.s.sociates innumerable, both men and women; and the Women's Liberal Federation with its 448 a.s.sociations has actively worked for candidates in a great number of counties in England.

_1886._--The number of members returned after the General Election of 1885 who were understood to be favorably inclined towards the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of women, exceeded any previous experience and on February 18th the motion to adjourn discussion was rejected by 159 ayes, 102 noes, and the bill pa.s.sed second reading without further division; but before going into Committee another dissolution of Parliament took place.

The General Election which followed was even more favorable, the friendly Members returned being in an actual majority, and yet session after session pa.s.sed and the pressure of Government business consumed Parliamentary time.

_1887-1890._--The need of a central point, such as is afforded when there is a bill before the House, round which all the suffrage forces could rally independent of party, made it difficult for them to maintain their cohesion. The Central Committee of the National Society for Women's Suffrage had been such a point but it could not escape the distracting outside influences, and a revision of its rules took place in December, 1888, with the result that the Society as. .h.i.therto existing dissolved and reformed in two separate organisations. One of these established new rules which enabled it to affiliate with Societies formed for other purposes; and one adhered to the old rules which admitted only organisations formed with the sole object of obtaining the Franchise. But if, as was held, the internal re-organisation of the Societies redounded to greater strength, even more so did an unprecedented attack from the outside, in the Summer of 1889, when the _Nineteenth Century_ opened its pages to a protest against the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of women, to which a few ladies in London society had been diligently canva.s.sing for signatures. The appearance of this protest was naturally the sign for an immediate counterblast, and the two Central Societies in London put a form of declaration into immediate circulation. The _Fortnightly Review_ gave s.p.a.ce to a reply from the pen of Mrs. Millicent Garrett Fawcett and to a selection from the signatures which poured into the Suffrage Offices with a rapidity that was amazing, as in sending out the forms for signature numbers had not been aimed at but rather it was sought to make the list representative. The _Nineteenth Century_ had contained the names of 104 ladies, mostly known as wives of public men, while those who had taken part in work for the good of the community and to advance the interests of women were conspicuous by their absence. The _Fortnightly_ gave s.p.a.ce for about 600 names asking for the suffrage, selected from over 2,000 received within a few days.[484]

This was the last work in which the distinguished reformer, Miss Caroline Ashurst Biggs, took part, as she died in September, 1889.

Miss Lydia Becker, editor of _The Women's Suffrage Journal_, which she had founded in 1870, pa.s.sed away the following Summer. These two deaths were an irreparable loss to the movement for the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of women.

_1891._--Parliamentary prospects grew brighter and Mr. William Woodall, who had charge of the Suffrage Bill, obtained May 13th for its consideration. The first Lord of the Treasury, Mr. W. H. Smith, had received a deputation appointed by the Suffrage Societies April 20th, to present him with a largely signed memorial praying that Her Majesty's Government would reserve the day appointed for the discussion of a measure "which suffers under the special disadvantage that those whom it chiefly concerns have no voting power with which to fortify their claims." They received the a.s.surance that the House would not adjourn before the 13th, and that the Government had no intention of taking the day for their business.