NAWSA  Gen. Corresp.   Wyoming Suffrage Assoes.

Fifteen Broad Street
New York

May 19, 1941

Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt,
120 Paine Avenue
New Rochelle, N. Y.

Dear Mrs. Catt:

At the suggestion of Mrs. Edna Lamprey
Stantial I send you herewith a copy of a pamphlet
entitled "How Woman Suffrage Came to Wyoming".  I
discovered the original pamphlet some two years ago
and upon learning that it was out of print I had it
republished and distributed to the women's clubs and
libraries in Wyoming.

Yours very truly,
Wm Deau Gunt[her]

Enclosure

Whey. Jan 22 1892

Dear Friend
I have ordered an
"Illustrated Tribute" sent to you -
This paper is the first one in Wyoming
that advocated woman's Suffrage and
has ever stood manfully by us -
Any little mention of the paper will
be appreciated by me -
Yours Sincerely,
Therese A  Jenkins.

UNITED STATES
POSTAL CARD
NOTHING BUT THE ADDRESS TO BE ON THIS SIDE

Alice Stone Blackwell
3 Park Street Woman's Journal
Boston Mass

Wyoming

State of Wyoming
Department of Public Instruction
Thomas T. Tynan, Superintendent
Cheyenne
February 20th, 1906.

Mrs. Alice Stone Blackwell,
No. 3 Park Street, Room 16,
Boston, Mass.

Dear Madam : -
You will please pardon my delay in answering your favor
of January 20th, relative to the questions of Woman's Sufferage in this
state;  I was quite busy at the time when your letter was received and
was unable to look up statistics in order that a fair comparison might
be made, in fact I do not now intend to say that the statistics herein
quoted are the latest, but they will give you a fair idea as to the
true conditions.
As to the ascertion of Mrs. A. J. George, in her lecture, that
the higher positions were reserved for men in this state, is without
foundation.  My predessor in office was a lady and she now occupies
the position of National Superintendent of Indian Schools, Miss Estelle
Reel.  The State Librarian is a lady, Mrs. Clara Bond.  The Librarian
and Secretary of the Board of Trustees of the State University is a 
lady.  Several chairs at the University are held by ladies.  One of the
Receivers of the United States Land Office, of this state is a lady,
Mrs. Minnie Williams, of Lander.  My deputy is a lady, in fact a lady
has occupied this latter position for the past twelve or fourteen
years.  Some of the principals of the smaller towns are ladies.  At one
time about eight years ago a lady was nominated and ran upon the Republican 
ticket and was elected as Presidential elector.
As to the payment of lady teachers throughout the state in
comparison with the Boston teachers, will say that according to the
latest statistics that I have I find the average yearly salary of
the grammar schools of Boston to be $998.40 and in the Primary $702.21


A.S.B. ---2.
STATE OF WYOMING.
DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION.
THOMAS T. TYNAN, SUPERINTENDENT.
CHEYENNE.

The average salary of the grammar schools of Cheyenne, female, is
$700.  This does not include the principals who are ladies, and who are
ussually paid higher salaries.  The Primary teachers annual salary is
$750.  Boston is considered a second class city, while Cheyenne would
be rated somewhere in the hundreds. Boston having a population of half
a million and Cheyenne of 14,000.  There should be a greater difference.
Comparing the teachers of this state salaries with that of
Massachusetts I find that Massachusetts averages nine and one fourth
months school and the average salary $55.37, while Wyoming averages
nine months and salary $53.  The average salaries of Massachusetts
including salaries paid principals of grammar and primary schools and
of college graduates teaching in High Schools in some of the counties
in Massachusetts pay as low as $165.04 per annum.  In this state no
teacher is paid less that $40.
Enclosed I hand you clipping from one of our papers here.
It may be on a par with the knowledge of such people as Mrs. A. J.
George, as to conditions in this state.
Hoping the information herein given will be of service to you.
I am,
Very respectfully yours,
Thomas T. Tynan
State Superintendent.

H for company
Bolinski
Fr. Howe
Michigan
Mr Wash
A S B
[?] [?][?]
Music Mrs. Kellogg

Pickles - Be ye fishers
of men
not overburdened to
filthy lucre
Dolly, Dolly, I'll let
you know that there is
God in Israel

Wyoming
Sup't Education


[* Wyoming 1905 *]
HOW WOMAN SUFFRAGE WORKS IN WYOMING.
Hon. W. S. Collins, President of the Big Horn County Irrigation Company,
says:-
"I have lived in the State of Wyoming twenty-one years and during
all that period women have voted at all elections.
"I have often found new-comers averse to women voting.  This soon
wears off and in a year or two husband and wife, brother and sister, father
and mother and daughter and son go to the polls to-gether, the same as to
any other meeting.  There is nothing thought of it, no remarks made about
it except by some tenderfoot just from the East and he is not encouraged
to repeat them.
"Women are no more corrupted by voting with their fathers, brothers
and husbands than they are by going with them to any other kind of a meeting.
It lifts up and ennobles the men.  Woman's influence for good is felt
there as it is in the home and around the fireside.
"The polls are arranged with full knowledge that women will go there
to vote.  Should any man attempt to locate a polling place where a woman
should not go, that man would have short shrift.  Woe unto the man who
would show anything but respect to a woman at the polls, no matter what
kind of a woman she is.
"There is very little bribery here.  The man who electioneers with
whisky is sure to be beaten and it is not attempted very often.
"Women almost invariably split their tickets.  They vote for the men
they deem to be the best and it follows that all parties endeavor to put
up their best men and so the best men are elected.  Women everywhere are
always in favor of law and order.  It is owing to the women's vote that our
young State, where the Cow-boy still flourishes, has stringent laws
against gambling.
"Women here read the State's affairs, notice what their Congressmen are
doing at Washington and go to political meetings.
"Does it unsex women?  No!  It is good to see intelligence flash from
their eyes.  They can see clear through a lord of creation from the effete
East and hand him the answer when he remarks about their having a hand in
government.
" 'Bad women' do vote but they do not take much interest.  They
trouble good women no more at the polls than they do at the bargain counter
or the theatre.
"Women appear no more out of place at the polls than they do at a
festival or fair.
"Citizens of Wyoming are proud that the Constitution of our State
was the first for equal political rights."



SPEAR HEAD

BUILDING AT CHEYENNE, WYOMING,
WHERE THE FIRST TERRITORIAL COUNCIL
OF THE LEGISLATURE MET, AND
WHERE WAS INTRODUCED THE BILL
WHICH GAVE WOMEN THE RIGHT OF
SUFFRAGE
From a sketch made by Governor Carey

1.  Mrs. Edward F. Costigan
2.  Dr. Valeria H. Parker
3.  E. Jean Nelson Penfield
4.  Dr. Grace Raymond Hebard, Univ. of Wyoming, Laramie, Wyo.
5.  Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt
6.  Miss Marjorie Shuler
7. . Mrs. P. J. Neeley, Kemmerer, Wyo.

Background - the front of the building in which the first
Woman's jury of the Worldsat in March, 1870.   Laramie, Wyo.
Picture made Nov. 10, 1919 by Eunice G. Anderson,
State Historian, Cheyenne, Wyo.

PROPERTY OF
RETURN PROMPTLY TO

LESLIE
WOMAN SUFFRAGE COMMISSION, Inc.
171 Madison Avenue
New York

#     9
Wyoming alpha
Pi Beta Phi

at a Luncheon
given Mrs. Catt
June 11, 1921
Laramie, Wyo

Grace Raymond Hebard
June 11, 1921
Laramie, Wyoming.


2                              -2-                    Wyoming     

[WYOMING] 1869 Wyoming      The first government in the world to enfranchise women was Wyoming. The Union Pacific Railroad was being build across Wyoming in 1867. There was no organized government and the territory between Nebraska and the Rockies was known as the Great American Desert. A lawless, shifting population of adventurous men occupied the spaces adjacent to the new railroad. 
   The better element petitioned the Congress for the protection of an organized government. It was allowed. The first election took place in September 1869, the purpose being to choose delegates to the first Legislature. 
   At South Pass City, the largest town in the State, a settlement consisting of rows of shacks stretching along a ledge of the Wind River Mountains, three thousand persons were washing gold. Twenty of the most influential men, including all the candidates of both parties, were invited to dinner at the "shack of Mrs. Esther Morris, who had followed her husband and three sons in to the trackless West". She presented the woman's [cass] cause to her guests and each candidate gave his solemn pledge that, if elected, he would introduce and support a woman suffrage bill. William H. Bright, Democrat, was elected, and was chosen president of the Council, or Senate, when the Legislature met October 1, 1869. Having given his promise, Mr. Bright set himself to the task of converting to woman suffrage the twenty-two men who composed the two Houses of the Legislature. The Legislature was unanimously Democratic. The Senate passed the suffrage bill, ayes 5, nays 2, absent 1. The House 

-3-
passed it, ayes 6, nays 4, absent 1. The Governor, who must sign the bill, was an unmarried Republican. Some delegates were represented [persuaded to] whose vote for woman suffrage with the expectation that the Governor would veto the measure. John W. Campbell signed the bill, however. He remembered that nineteen years before he, with other boys, had attended the First Woman Suffrage Convention held in Ohio [held] at his birthplace, Salem. The convention passed twenty-two resolutions. Women [[??]] permitted hospital or vote at the Coarsen Leon, Bar. The convention passed twenty-two resolutions. When it was over, all men who had been in attendance, met together and "endorsed all the ladies had said and done." The memory gave him courage and he signed the bill. 
   When the Legislature met again, in 1871, a bill to repeal women suffrage was introduced. The bill passed the House, ayes 9, nays 3, absent 1, every vote for repeal being Democratic and every vote against being Republican. The Repeal passed the Senate, ayes 5, all Democratic, and nays 4, all Republicans. Governor Campbell now promptly vetoed the bill. The House passed the repeal over the Governor's veto by the required two-thirds vote, ayes 9, all Democratic, Nays 2 Republican, two absentees who had paired their votes. In the Senate the repeal did not secure a two-thirds vote, ayes 5 Democratic, nays 4 Republican. Thus, woman suffrage in Wyoming. 
   From the year 1869 to 1930, when the vote was won in the nation, every Governor, Chief Justice, as well as many prominent citizens, gave endorsement of the beneficence of woman suffrage. Not one reputable person in the State said over his own signature

-4-
that "woman suffrage is other than an unpeachable success in Wyoming."
Immediately after the passage of the first woman suffrage
bill, in 1869, Esther Morris was appointed Justice of the Peace.
The appointment was reported to have been made in order to humiliate
women, because of the failure expected of a woman in this post.
Instead, forty cases were tried before her and not one was appealed.
Women, too, were appointed to petit and grand juries and acquitted
themselves with honor and ability. 
One jury, consisting of six men and six women, were locked 
up for the night, - the women in one room, the men in the other. 
A man bailiff guarded the men; a woman bailiff, the women..
A drawing of the building where the first legislature met,
the photographs of the first woman voter, the woman who proposed the
vote for women in Wyoming, the man who introduced the bill, the 
Governor who signed the bill and vetoed the repeal, the first woman
ever summoned to jury service, the first to serve on a petit jury,
and the first to serve on a grand jury, the first woman bailiff,
have been carefully preserved. [*and are here presented.*]
Wyoming grants complete credit for woman suffrage in the
State to Mrs. Esther Morris.
When the Territory of Wyoming applied for statehood, woman
suffrage became part of the constitution, but there was a long and
butter struggle in Congress. Delegate James Carey [*felt obliged to*] telegraph[ed] the
Wyoming Legislature that probably Congress would not grant statehood
with woman suffrage in the constitution. The next day he read
the answer received. "We will remain out of the Union a hundred years

-5-
rather than come in without woman suffrage." [*In consequence*]
The House, March 1890, by a vote of 139 ayes to 127 nays 
voted to accept the constitution. The Senate accepted it in June
1890 by 29 ayes, 18 nays, 37 absent. Thus came the end of opposition
to woman suffrage in Wyoming. 
For fifty years Wyoming pronounced false every prediction
of anti-suffragists and gave so much evidence of positive good to
the community arising from the votes of women that she became the
direct cause of the establishment of woman suffrage in all the
surrounding states. 

The Constitutional Convention
of Wyoming
By Henry J. Peterson

UNIVERSITY OF WYOMING
LARAMIE, WYOMING
1940

The ANNALS OF WYOMING, quarterly historical magazine
published by the Wyoming Historical Department, Cheyenne,
Wyoming, is pleased to enclose for its readers this treatise
on the Constitutional Convention of Wyoming by Professor
Henry J. Peterson, of the University of Wyoming, Laramie.
Professor Peterson has made a careful study of the records
of that momentous event in the history of the State, has selected
the highlights on various phase of the Constitution as it was
being prepared, and has woven them into a clear and concise
story of what took place during the twenty-five days that body
was in session, September, 1889.
The thoughts and views of many of the individual delegates
from the ten counties, as they sponsored or opposed specific
sections of the proposed document, give lucid insight into the
personalities of that historic body.
GLADYS F. RILEY,
State Librarian and Historian.

The members of the Wyoming Constitutional Convention of 1889 who
are living in 1940:
WM. E. CHAPLIN, Delegate from Albany County
H. S. ELLIOT, Delegate from Johnson County
MISS LOUISE S. SMITH, Official Stenographer 

UNIVERSITY OF WYOMING PUBLICATIONS
[CONTINUATION OF UNIVERSITY OF WYOMING
PUBLICATIONS IN SCIENCE]
Volume VII, No. 6, pp. 101-131
May 1, 1940
THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION OF WYOMING
HENRY J. PETERSON
University of Wyoming 
The dry summer of 1886, followed by a severe winter, had played
havoc with Wyoming's cattle business, and the Territory of Wyoming was
primarily a cattle country. Following the very heavy losses of cattle came
a period of low prices. Some cattlemen were ruined; many others quit the
business and left the territory. Economic conditions were hard, and Wyoming
people looked forward to a dark future. Statehood suggested itself 
to some political leaders as a way out. Capital investments from outside
could not be expected in a community subject to the uncertainty of territorial
government. With statehood, outside capital would flow in, railroads
would be built, almost unlimited natural resources would be developed, and
Wyoming would again be prosperous. Moreover, since the territory had
served its apprenticeship, why should it continue to be governed by carpet
baggers? Why should it not participate in the national government? 
ORGANIZATION OF THE CONVENTION
The Territorial Legislature of 1888 passed a House Joint Resolution 
in which Congress was petitioned for statehood.1 Enabling legislation was 
recommended by the two Committees on Territories of both branches of
Congress, but no action was taken during that session. Wyoming, however, 
was getting impatient for action, so Governor Warren issued a proclamation 
calling for the election of delegates to a Constitutional Convention, to
meet the first Monday in September, 1889.
On September 1, the Cheyenne Daily Sun reported that "Tomorrow
the convention meets. Its personnel is exceptionally high and represents 
the best ability, culture and statesmanship of the territory."2
The day of the meeting of the Constitutional Convention was bright 
and fair. Flags floated gaily from the Capitol. Some of the delegates had
spent as many as five days on their journey, for transportation in parts of
Wyoming in those days was difficult. The Inter-Ocean Hotel was the central
meeting place of the delegates, and about eleven o'clock small groups 
________________
1 Session Laws of Wyoming Territory. 1888, p. 226.
2 Cheyenne Daily Sun. September 1, 1889.

I02                        University of Wyoming Publications                        VOL. 7

started from the hotel on their way to the Capitol.  The delegates gathered 
in the Supreme Court room.
      At twelve o'clock noon the convention was called to order by A. B. 
Conaway of Sweetwater County.  Mr. E. S. N. Morgan's motion that a 
Committee on Temporary Organization consisting of one member from 
each county be appointed was adopted.3
      This committee nominated H. S. Elliott, an able and popular Democratic 
attorney of Johnson County, for Temporary President and J. K. Jeffrey of 
Laramie County for Temporary Secretary.  The committee also suggested 
that Robert C. Morris report the proceedings of the temporary organization.  
These nominations were ratified by the convention.
      On taking the chair Mr. Elliott expressed his appreciation for the honor, 
which he felt had been conferred on him with a double motive: as a compliment 
 to northern Wyoming, and as evidence of a desire to place the convention 
 on a non-partisan basis.  "Let the constitution be a document 
 worthy of this convention and worthy of the people of Wyoming" was his 
 injunction.
      Thomas R. Reed of Laramie County moved that a Committee on Credentials 
be appointed to consist of one member from each county.  The report 
of this committee was adopted, and the committee continued in order to 
pass on the credentials of delegates who might come later.  On roll call the 
following members answered to their names:
    Albany County: Stephen W. Downey, M.N. Grant, Melville C. Brown, 
Wm. E. Chaplin, Geo. W. Fox, John W. Hoyt, A. L. Sutherland, John McGill.
    Carbon County: Geo. Ferris, Geo. C. Smith, Chas. L. Vagner, J. A. 
Casebeer, R. C. Butler, C. W. Burdick.
    Crook County: Richard H. Scott, Meyer Frank.
    Converse County: W. C. Irvine, M. C. Barrow.
    Fremont County: D. A. Preston, H. G. Nickerson.
    Johnson County: H .S. Elliott, Chas. H. Burritt, John M. McCandlish.
    Laramie County: Henry G. Hay, E. S. N. Morgan, Charles N. Potter, 
John A. Riner, Geo. W. Baxter, James A. Johnston, Caleb P. Organ, John 
K. Jeffrey, Thomas R. Reed, H. E. Teschemacher.
    Sheridan County: H. A. Coffeen.
    Sweetwater County: A. B. Conaway, Edward J. Morris, H. E. Menough.
    Uinta County: Clarence D. Clark, Frank M. Foote, Jesse Knight, Chas. 
W. Holden, Johnathan Jones, John L Russell.

3 Journal and Debates of the Constitutional Convention of the State of Wyoming, The Daily Sun,
Cheyenne, Wyoming, 1893.  pp. 4-2I.


No. 6    Peterson—The Constitutional Convention of Wyoming    I03

      The following delegates appeared within the next few days: Lewis J. 
Palmer of Sweetwater County, N. Baldwin of Fremont County, Anthony 
C. Campbell of Laramie County, F. H. Harvey of Converse County, Mark 
Hopkins of Sweetwater County, and DeForest Richards of Converse County.
      On the second day of the convention the suggestion of Mr. Fox that 
the delegates proceed to elect a permanent chairman was adopted.4   The 
nominations being by counties, Mr. Hoyt presented the name of Melville 
C. Brown of Albany, and Mr. Scott nominated A. B. Conaway of Sweetwater 
County.  A faction of the Republican party had supported Clarence 
D. Clark of Uinta County for chairman, but he refused to be a candidate.  
This group, therefore, supported Mr. Conaway.  The Democrats joined 
another faction of the Republican party in support of the Albany candidate 
with the result that Brown received 24 votes, Conaway I7 votes, Hoyt I
vote, and Baxter I vote.  The chairman declared Melville C. Brown elected.  
Mr. Brown was conducted to the chair by Mr. Hoyt and Mr. Baxter, two 
ex-governors of the territory.
       On taking the chair, Judge Brown expressed his appreciation for his 
selection as a chairman.  "We are here," he said, "as a non-partisan body; 
we are here as men selected by the people to prepare for them a constitution 
that shall be their pride as well as ours for the years to come."
      The delegates also selected as permanent officers of the convention, 
J. K. Jeffrey as secretary, Mrs. B. Recker and H. Glafcke as assistant secretaries.  
O. P. Yelton as sergeant-at-arms, J. B. Walsh as doorkeeper, and 
the Rev. S. A. Bright as chaplain. Miss Louisa S. Smith was appointed 
official stenographer of convention and is responsible for the Proceedings 
and Debates.
      A committee, chosen to draft rules for the convention, decided on the 
titles of the standing committees, the members of which were appointed by 
the president of the convention after informal consultations with political 
leaders.  The committee also proposed the general rules for the convention.
      In reporting the organization of the convention in its issue of September 
5th, the Cheyenne Daily Sun suggested that 
       Never in the history of Wyoming, if ever in any state or territory, 
       has a body of representative men undertaken so grand a work with 
       more energy, discretion, and practical business sagacity.  It has 
       already made a record to be proud of.  The committee on rules 
       made its report in the morning, and before the close of the day the 
       body of rules, titles and number of standing committees were perfected 
       and adopted, and the matter placed in the hands of the 
       printer.5

4 Cheyenne Daily Sun.  September 4, 1889.
5 Ibid. September 5, 1889.

104            University of Wyoming Publications            VOL. 7
Some of the weekly newspapers had opposed statehood and one of the
county conventions called to select delegates had adopted a resolution of
opposition. This opposition seems to have come from certain Democratic
factions that feared political domination from Cheyenne. Moreover, the
Democrats desired to postpone statehood until their party would have a better
chance to elect the first state officers. This feeling against statehood
came to a head in the convention when Mr. H. A. Coffeen of Sheridan
County
... arose with evident feeling and a little embarrassment to a 
question of privilege. He wished to say that he was present in this
convention under instructions from his constituents to oppose statehood.
In justice to them and in obedience to their wishes he desired
to say that he stood here ready to second a motion not to
formulate a constitution. After looking around for a moment and
finding no adventurous spirit anxious to "fire the Ephesian dome" 
and hand his name down to posterity in the manner proposed, the
handsome, gentlemanly and winning Coffeen seemed to consider a
very disagreeable duty accomplished and took his seat. During
this episode the delegates from Johnson County were considerably 
oblivious.6
Well organized and enthusiastic, the delegates settled down to the routine
work of committee meetings, to prepare for the convention the various
sections assigned to particular committees. A proposition by Mr. Downey
to have a committee prepare a constitution to be submitted to the committee
of the whole was discussed but not favored. Two or three ready-made
constitutions were submitted to the convention, were sectioned and referred
to the various committees.
The keynote of the convention was economy, for, as one of the delegates
said "... times are hard." There was also a feeling of optimism
on the part of the delegates as they met. President Hoyt had well expressed
their attitude before the meeting of the convention when he said,
We should aim to secure the best constitution ever submitted to
Congress - a model in every respect, a constitution whose excellencies
would strongly commend it and the claims of this territory
to the favor of the national legislature. Let the conventions, all of
them, local and constitutional, be conventions of and for the people,
acting in their freest and most exalted capacity.7
Although a majority of the delegates were Republican, the agitation
for a non-partisan convention before the meeting and the selection of Mr.
Elliott, a Johnson County Democrat, as chairman combined to keep out partisanship.
The Daily Sun, towards the close of the convention, reported
__________
6 Ibid. September 7, 1889.
7 Paper read before the Wyoming Academy of Sciences and published in the Laramie Daily
Boomerang. June 7, 1889.

No. 6        Peterson-The Constitutional Convention of Wyoming         105
that "Party lines have not been drawn during the entire convention, but
political bias cropped out here and there, especially on apportionment."8
The influence of corporate interests does not seem very evident in the debates
of the delegates or action of the convention except on the question
of taxation of the coal industry.
While individual delegates often suggested that the constitution would
no doubt meet with the approval of the people if certain action were or
were not taken, the anti-statehood sentiment suggested before the convention
failed to materialized on the floor. The Daily Sun reported that
It is a singular fact that the members supposed to represent anti-state
constituencies are among the most able and energetic workers
upon the floor. Burritt of Johnson is a power and would be a
leader in any convention. Coffeen of Sheridan is doing admirable
work. He is a whole delegation in one man. Elliott of Johnson,
honored with the temporary chairmanship, has acquitted himself
nobly, and made an excellent impression from the beginning. If
their constituents could see them and note the spirit of the convention
there would be no erratic opposition to statehood among
them.9
Many problems were considered by the Constitutional Convention, some
new or peculiar to the West, others such as might be considered in the convention
of any state. Woman suffrage, education, an educational test for
voters, taxation, irrigation, control of corporations, boards of arbitration -
these were some of the problems. Limitation of space permits the consideration
of only a few. It is proposed to indicate the underlying struggles
in the Convention - between sections, between certain interests, and between
delegates holding different ideals.
WOMAN SUFFRAGE
The first territorial legislature gave women the ballot. When the movement
for a constitutional convention got under way, the women of the
territory began to organize in order to insure the inclusion of an equal
suffrage clause in the proposed constitution. 
Mrs. M. E. Post, Vice President of the Wyoming Woman's Suffrage
Association, called a meeting in Cheyenne of the women of Laramie County
to take action.10 Mrs. Hale was sure the men of today would not be less
generous and large hearted than the men of twenty years ago. "There is
a feeling implanted in every breast," she affirmed, "that God created us all
equal and so long as we are subject to the same laws, so truly have we a
right to say what those laws shall be." Mrs. Post was quite sure that woman
suffrage was generally conceded an unqualified success. Women had always
___________
8 Cheyenne Daily Sun. September 28, 1889.
9 Ibid. September 8, 1889.
10 Cheyenne Daily Sun. June 16, 1889.
 

106 University of Wyoming Publications VOL.7

been found on the side of good government. Resolutions were adopted
urging that equal suffrage be included in the constitution. 
   In Laramie a number of women attended the Republican county convention.
They nominated three women as delegates to the constitutional
convention by their candidates were defeated. It was proposed that the 
convention ought to adopt a resolution in favor of woman suffrage, but
the point was made that equal suffrage would be included in the constitution 
as a matter of course. 11
   With woman suffrage an accomplished fact in the territory, few politicians 
were bold enough to oppose it openly. Consequently, the Laramie
Daily Boomerang, not wishing to offend the women by a direct attack on
equal suffrage, raised the question of the wisdom of including such a provision
in the constitution. 

Notwithstanding the fact that female suffrage is strongly favored
in Wyoming and has been something of a success in its operations
here, it is a matter of great doubt whether it is expedient to embody 
it in the constitution to be framed. it is not at all certain that
Congress would approve a state constitution making provision for
woman suffrage and there is no reason in declaring that Wyoming
should stay out of the Union until Congress may be willing to ratify 
such a constitution . . . . No other state has equal suffrage and
they have grown and prospered and been successful governed
and a majority in Congress might say that so long as women do 
not vote in the older states there is no reason why suffrage should 
be conferred upon them in any of the new states. 12

  To refute this argument Governor Warren sent to the constitutional 
convention letters written by leaders in Congress. "There is no danger," 
wrote Thomas B. Reed of Maine, "that the admission of Wyoming will be
hindered in the least by putting woman suffrage in the constitution." 13
   The day set aside for the discussion of the equal suffrage section "called
out a full attendance of delegates and many visitors occupied the space 
outside the rails and some in the gallery." Many of those present were
"ladies prominent in social circles and known to be very warm adherents 
to the cause of woman suffrage."14
   When the committee on suffrage recommended an equal suffrage section
to the Committee of the Whole, Mr. Campbell moved that the question 
should be submitted and voted upon separately by the people (pp. 345-7).
He hurried to add that he supposed that many would believe, since he
introduced such an amendment, that he was opposed to equal suffrage. He 
_________

11Laramie Daily Boomerang. June 29, 1889.
12Laramie Daily Boomerang. July 19, 1889.
13Journal and Debates of the Constitutional Convention of the State of Wyoming. The Daily
Sun, Cheyenne, Wyoming, 1893. (All quotations either marked by page reference or not marked at all
are taken from this source.) 
14Cheyenne Daily Sun. September 18, 1889.

No. 6 Peterson-The Constitutional Convention of Wyoming 107
had thought in early years, that it was a departure from the fundamental
principles that had been heretofore established, that it was very vicious in
its tendencies. Impressions of early youth were hard to get rid of. He had
believed, before coming to the territory, that it was a failure in Wyoming
and that in the whole country you could not find a more lawless condition
of things existing than at Rawlins, Laramie City, and Cheyenne, and that
this lawlessness was due to equal suffrage. When he came to Wyoming,
however, he found that it was not true. He had taken part in many Wyoming
elections and he had always found that they were conducted in the 
most orderly manner. Though equal suffrage had not worked any great 
harm and its tendencies shad been good, yet he had heard complaints as he 
traveled over the territory from people who opposed it because it had not 
been submitted to popular vote. It was believed that the legislature was
afraid to submit the question lest woman suffrage be defeated. He thought
before equal suffrage was established as a law of the new state, the people
ought to have a chance to vote on it. He had been asked by persons in
Cheyenne to present the proposition. It was said also that women did not 
care for the right to vote. He had been told that the question had been
introduced in the legislature as a joke and that at no time was it seriously
considered. 

Another thing we are going to have a pretty tough time getting
into the union, no matter what sort of a constitution you present
to the people, and if you put a proposition of this kind into the 
constitution without giving those persons who are opposed to 
woman's suffrage a chance to express their opinions about it, they
will vote against that constitution.

Reference to popular vote would also strengthen equal suffrage in other 
states. He felt quite sure that the people of the territory would favor the 
preposition by a vote of two-thirds or more, if it were referred to them
and he himself expected to vote for it. Favorable action by Wyoming people
after twenty years of experience with it would be the best of arguments 
for equal suffrage in other states. 

  The introduction of this amendment produced much discussion. Friends
of equal suffrage were strong in its defense. Mr. Baxter pointed out that
in most of the proposals for the constitution they were on tried and tested
ground (pp. 347-9). It was on questions concerning which they would not
find such clearly defined precedents that they would prove themselves worthy
or unworthy of the confidence reposed in them. He was especially interested
in granting all the citizens of the territory absolute and exact justice 
in the matter of the elective franchise. The men of Wyoming did not 
propose "to deny to their wives, their mothers and the sisters the right 
which the immortal Lincoln and Seward and Summer and Grant and Chase,
    


108 University of Wyoming Publications Vol. 7
raised up by an over-ruling Providence in the darkest hour in the history
of the nation, to preserve it from dismemberment, deemed worthy of bestowing
upon millions of emancipated slaves." He yielded to no man in
the homage and adoration which he felt and which, upon all proper occasions,
he gladly paid to a pure and lovely woman. He favored equal suffrage 
because it was right, because it was fair, and because it was just.
Mr. Holden thought the people of Uinta County would, rather than
surrender the right which the women of the territory had so long enjoyed, 
a privilege which they had used not only with credit to themselves but with 
profit to the country in which they lived, prefer to remain in a territorial 
condition throughout the endless cycles of time (p. 350)
Mr. Conaway said that as a boy he had often wondered why women
doing the same work as men did not receive the same pay (pp. 350-I).
He thought, perhaps, it was because women did not have the vote. Wyoming
women had been given the right to vote and there was in law such
a thing as a vested right which it was now proposed to take away from them.
Mr. Brown wondered if the proposition to refer equal suffrage was
part of a reported scheme to defeat the constitution at the polls (pp. 351-I).
He did not believe equal suffrage had been adopted by the legislature as a
jest, and reviewed the history of the law. Mr. Brown further declared that
"it has become one of the fundamental laws of the land, and to raise any
question about it at this time is as improper, in my judgment, as to raise
any question as to any fundamental right guaranteed to any citizen in this
territory." He would rather submit to the voters the question of male
suffrage. 
Paying a glowing tribute to women's loyalty and patriotism in the 
Revolution and in the Civil War, Mr. Hoyt pointed out the progress of 
women in various countries (pp. 303-6). Wyoming stood in the front in
the progress of women. For twenty years the women of the territory had
taken part with the men in its government, and no man had ever dared to 
say in the Territory of Wyoming that woman suffrage was a failure. Instead
of social disorder or retrogression there had been, on the contrary,
an improvement of the social order, better laws, better officials, a higher
and better civilization. They stood today proud, proud of that great experiment. 
Why then this extraordinary proposition? He felt certain, from 
his contact with the people of the territory, that the great overwhelming
majority of its people, male and female, approved equal suffrage. He believed
that Congress would welcome a constitution and their state into the
Union as the advance guard of liberty in the world. If Wyoming and Congress
should prove to be against suffrage, then he also, with his friend
from Uinta County, believed that they would rather remain out of the Union
until a sentiment of justice should prevail. They struggled with propositions


No. 6 Peterson- The Constitutional Convention of Wyoming 109

on irrigation, on municipal corporation, on education, on railroads,
on corporations, and on other matters which were indeed important, but
how trivial, how subordinate they were when brought into comparison with
the great questions of the rights of humanity.
So I make this last appeal, let us not only vote down this amendment,
which I am sure we shall do by a large majority, but let us 
do it so completely, so overwhelmingly, so effectually that the
question will no longer rise. We hope to see planted upon this
beautiful flag another star, let it be a star whose radiancy shall be
undimmed by an act of abandonment or thievery on the part of
one-half of the population as dealing with the other half, and as
my friend said, the better half of our entire population.
Coming to the defense of Mr. Campbell, Mr. Burritt pointed out that
Mr. Campbell was merely defending the right of petition in suggesting that
the question of inclusion of equal suffrage in the constitution be referred
to the voters (pp. 356-7). He had no idea, when the gentlemen presented
the proposition that such a tempest tea pot would be raised (p. 357).
Mr. Palmer believed that many voters of his county, Sweetwater, would
vote against the constitution if it provided for equal suffrage. To safeguard
the adoption of the constitution he also favored separate submission.
When the amendment was put to a vote it was defeated by a vote of
20 to 8, and the motion providing for equal suffrage was adopted (p. 358).
AN EDUCATIONAL TEST FOR VOTERS
In certain parts of the territory it had been the custom for the Clerk
of Court to round up illiterate aliens for naturalization. Presumably, they 
were voted at the elections for the benefit of certain organized interests
in the territory. In part to put a stop to this practice the Committee on 
Elections recommended an education test for voters (pp. 368-9). 
Mr. Campbell suggested that if voting is a right it can not be limited
(pp. 370-2). If it is a privilege it may be limited. If it is a right no educational 
qualifications should in any way interfere with the right. However, 
the opposition to an education test stood on even broader grounds. 
Every citizen, whether he could read or write, was obliged to defend this
country in time of danger. If, in such times, a man were wounded or 
crippled for life it would be a national disgrace to deprive him of the right
to say who should govern his country simply because he could not read. Take
also taxation. Even the strongest advocates of a property qualification had
never yet been able to get around this-that if you tax a man to support 
the government he should have a right to say who should levy the tax and
who should disburse the revenue after the tax is levied. Some citizens of
the territory had acquired considerable property, yet were unable to read or

110 University of Wyoming Publications VOL. 7
write; such men would be deprived of the privilege of saying who might
levy and disburse their taxes. Mr. Campbell's experience and observation
suggested that it was not the uneducated who was the ignorant man, by any
means. He had never seen a man in the territory unable to read or write
who was not an intelligent person and understood what was going on. It
was not the ignorant man who sold his vote; it was the one who could read
and write.
  Mr. Brown, on the contrary, thought voting a privilege which they
could bestow upon such classes of citizens as they saw fit (pp. 372-3). The
question, therefore, was how far to extend the privilege. New York had
tried property qualification and found it did not work well in the interest 
of the government so cast it aside. Universal suffrage, he thought had not
worked to the highest good and welfare of the South and the reason seemed
to be the ignorance of some voters. If, after twenty years of experience,
in the south the ignorant voter seemed to endanger the prosperity of that
section it was time to think about it seriously and to determine whether
they would allow the mass of ignorant voters of this country to exercise
that privilege. He granted that there were exceptional cases,  when ignorant
people might vote perhaps as intelligently as some of the best educated
but that would be true of only the few. It was the mass of ignorance that
they were seeking to cut off from the suffrage. He thought the section
reported by the committee would result in benefit to the state.
  Mr. Holden did not think the delegates need worry about the illiterate
old soldiers for there were none (pp. 374-5). The real purpose of the
educational test was to eliminate the illiterate aliens who had been naturalized
fraudulently, who were unable to read the ballot placed in their hands,
and then on the day of election were rounded up to vote like so many cattle.
  Mr. Palmer thought it a very sad and mortifying thing to an American
citizen to be present at an election and see intelligent men and women go up
to the ballot box to cast their ballots and then have a host of ignorant fellows,
who knew nothing whatever of our institutions, cancel their votes
(p. 377).
  Mr. Preston believed that when the Declaration of Independence was
framed by our forefathers there was a principle embodied in that declaration
that all men were created equal (pp. 384-5). They were created with certain
inherent rights and one of those was the right to vote, whether rich or
poor, ignorant or educated. It was not the intention of the framers of the
Constitution of the United States that a man should be possessed of any
other qualifications than that of citizenship in the United States. When
legislators said that a man must be educated in order to vote, when they 
undertook to say that a civil service commission must be appointed to examine
into the qualifications of a man before he could cast a vote, they were

No. 6  Peterson—The Constitutional Convention of Wyoming  111
placing upon him one of those restrictions which it was not intended ever
should be placed upon him by the founders of this country. He was obliged
to say to the delegates that if they embodied in the Constitution of Wyoming
an educational requirement for voting, then they were signing the
death warrant of the Constitution, as it would never be accepted by the
people of Wyoming. Also, to make a distinction between one who was living
in Wyoming and one coming after admission of the territory was striking
the death blow at the future prosperity of the state.
  Mr. Conaway thought that the qualifications of practical knowledge, of
honest and moral character, and of right intention, were more important,
and much more effective, than the enducational one (pp. 385-8).
  Mr. Harvey, however, did not think that Wyoming, at this stage of the
world's development, could afford to stand on the basis that ignorance bred
intelligence as did education (pp. 388-91). He believed it was agreed that
the most serious problem that confronted them was the simple question of
that ignorance of the vast hordes that were coming in among them year by
year. He thought it was agreed that one of the best possible means of 
avoiding this evil was by the adoption of some such measure as proposed
in the section. They had adopted equal suffrage because they thought women
were capable of exercising it wisely, that the interests of the state would
be promoted by so doing. He supposed they would adopt compulsory
education. "Let us be consistent then; let us educate, let us put a premium
on education, let us require our voters to fulfill the law by educating
themselves."
  As author of the provision, Mr. Teschemacher thought it was time
that he should defend it (pp. 389-91). Beginning with Maine in 1820 several
states had adopted an educational test for voting. He wanted to know
if it was not a fact that Wyoming had the least amount of ignorance of any
state or territory in the United States. They had only two percent of illiteracy,
so the number of people involved would not defeat the constitution.
On the other hand, he did not believe it would be proper to deprive a man
of his vote because he was poor and unable to pay his taxes. Taxation and
suffrage had nothing to do with each other at all.
  Mr. Baxter offered an amendment, the purpose of which was to continue
as voters those already in the territory, even though illiterate, but to
exclude from voting foreigners who were now coming (p. 370).
  Mr. Hoyt wished it to be understood that the committee was looking to
the future (pp. 392-3). They all had pride in their population, in the
intelligence of their people, and no member of the convention would deprive
any citizen of the rights he had already enjoyed. To prevent an influx
of the foreign element, who were unable to understand our institutions, and

112
University of Wyoming Publications
VOL. 7
who were incompetent to uphold them, was the reason for the amendment.
With the Mississippi and Missouri valleys filling up, there would come a
mighty tide of immigrants t these mountain regions, and they would be
flooded by people from the old world, without knowledge of our institutions,
without ability to govern themselves.  This warning of an educational test
would insure the properity and success of the commonwealth.
  Mr. Riner thought if there were to be an educational test no exception
ought to be made of illiterates who had voted before the adoption of the
constitution (pp. 432-3).  "I cannot for the life of me see," he continued,
"why that (residence at time of constitutional adoption) should be any
reason, that simply because a man at the time of the adoption of this constitution
happens to be located within the territory of Wyoming, if he is
unable to read the constitution, why he should enjoy the right, while the
man who comes in here after the day of election, shall not.  I say the thing
is inconsistent and unreasonable."
  Mr. Hoyt replied that the franchise of such citizens was in the nature
of a vested right and, therefore, could not, with justice, be taken from
them (p. 435).
  Mr. Riner suggested that the real reason for the inclusion of the provision
was that the delegates wished the support, for the constitution, of
the 1,500 who could not read and write.  Mr. Teschemacher, however, believed
that the amendment was not an electioneering scheme but was based
on a principle historically developed.  "The suffrage once granted," he said,
"is never taken away" (p. 433).
  The vote to strike out was lost (p. 436).  Thus the educational test,
amended to reserve voting privileges to all residents voting before admission,
became a part of the article on suffrage.  The Suffrage Article was adopted
by a vote of 30 to 12 (p. 443).

THE ORGANIZATION OF NEW COUNTIES
  Pioneering is ever a fascinating subject.  The more venturesome members
of the community leave the more prosperous and less aggressive ones
behind and go on to establish new settlements.  Problems of co-operation
are a natural result.  The newer communities are apt to feel that there is
little sympathy for their needs on the part of those who have themselves
passed that phase of development.  This situation was well illustrated in
the convention, particularly in its discussions of county organization and
the basis for senate representation.
  Northern Wyoming had been developing rapidly during the past decade.
The people of the new communities which were springing up desired local
government.  Transportation was difficult, with the county seat almost in-

113
No. 6
Peterson -- The Constitutional Convention of Wyoming
accessable.  One of the delegates suggested that with the county seat 200
miles away, the new settlers were practically deprived of the benefit of
local government.  The matter of local pride also entered into the question.
They had the same rights as the older communities, they felt, and
somehow the necessarry expenses could be met.  County government called
for little expenditure anyway.  Then, too, they felt that the Union Pacific
counties were trying to dominate the Territory and resented this attitude.
  The desire on the part of the northern counties for easy procedure for
organization of new counties was opposed by the older communities of the
southern part of the state and by those northern counties which had been
left in hard financial circumstances by having large tax paying sections
carved from their areas to create the new counties.
  The enthusiastic Coffeen, from the newly organized Sheridan County,
reflected the spirit of the newer sections of the Territory.  "I come from a
county that is one of the newest in the sisterhood," he declared, "and is in
today perhaps as good, if not better, financial condition than any county in
the territory, and by these provisions, as they now stand, it would have
been impossible to have secured an organization of Sheridan County, for
we have not even now two millions of taxable property" (p. 298).  Sheridan
County had only $250,000 taxable valuation when organized.  He was
opposed to increasing and heaping up difficulties in the way of organizing
new counties, by making the assessable valuation of taxable property too
high.  A valuation of $2,000,000 would give more funds than was needed
for the proper running of any county, if conducted on an economical and
proper basis.
   He also wished to challenge the attention of the delegates who favored
the more rapid development of the territory and to ask them to consider
two or three things.  They were seeking statehood because they expected
to manage their affairs more advantageously than under territorial form.
Would they then deny new communities which desired to set up local self-
government upon the very same principle on which they were seeking statehood?
Could they not best develop their resources by facilitating the organization
of new counties if the proposed counties had taxable property
sufficient for an economical home management?  He believed a valuation of
$1,000,000 was sufficient for any new county, with careful management.
  Sheridan County had been carved out of Johnson County and Mr.
Riner wished to know in what condition the division had left that county
(p. 298).  Mr. Campbell inquired why Sheridan County warrants were
selling at such a discount if it was in a prosperous condition (p. 298).
  Mr. Potter agreed that Sheridan County had done very well but they
had been very economical, had had no unusual expense, and had not even
held district court the first year of their existence (pp. 298-9).  In the very

114 University of Wyoming Publications VOL. 7

next county, with a taxable valuation of $1,700,000, he was told that it was
almost impossible to exist and keep out of debt. He knew that great theories
 concerning the organization of new counties had grown up in every 
state and that in some states there were counties you could almost step
across. Therefore, he thought there ought to be some safeguards in regard
to organizing new counties so as to make them absolutely safe. He was
inclined to think $2,500,000 the correct amount for valuation.

Mr. Harvey agreed with Mr. Coffeen. "We are in the north," he said,
"squeal from very bitter experience on this subject. We have learned to 
our entire satisfaction the difficulties of being 200 miles from the county
seat" (pp. 299-300). The northerners realized very keenly that hardship
of being practically deprived of local self government. Mr. Harvey said
he would never have lived in central Wyoming for three years had he anticipated
 the experience he had had. He thought the valuation ought to be
put as low as possible so as to "give the new portions a chance."

Mr. Campbell presented the other side of the picture. With a valuation
 of $1,800,000 Fremont County warrants were selling at 93 and 95.
"In Converse County, with an assessed valuation, as I understand, out of
two million, will the gentlemen deny," he inquired, "that today they have 
not a cent to put up a bridge across a creek in Converse County- no funds
out of which to build roads" (p. 300). Johnson County had been paralyzed
by losing the land put into Sheridan County. As to Sheridan County, the
county commissioners had not done their duty to the people of the county
since it was organized. With a person in jail they refused to call court 
until threatened by the district judge. They had no public buildings or at
least only a log cabin for a jail.

 In answer to his critics, Mrs. Coffeen held that the credit of Sheridan
County was good, as he had received 95 for the last warrant he sold 
(pp. 301-2). They had a steel lined jail which would hold any criminal of
Laramie County who might ever happen to get into it, one of the best in
the Territory. Much of the expense of a larger county was for mileage;
in a small and compact community a great deal of this expense was saved.
With the money thus saved the extra officials for a new county could be
paid. He would prefer the valuation as low as $1,500,000 and the requisite
population cut to 1,000. All the arguments that were made in Congress for
statehood were the very arguments that he would offer for new counties.

Mr. Elliott, of Johnson County, wished to remind the delegates that
in the last legislature, when the proposal to divide the county was made,
he had suggested to that body that the people of the old county and some
rights which the legislature was bound to respect and the result to their
county had shown that his appeal was a good one (pp. 302-3). With only
$2,000,000 of taxable property their condition had really been pitiable.

No. 6     Peterson--The Constitutional Convention of Wyoming   115

There had been times when the banks refused to receive their warrants
for any sum; nearly every public improvement had been stopped; their
taxes had been put up to the highest possible notch; and at their last
election the voters had drafted two business men to take hold of the affairs
of the county. While Sheridan County and done remarkable well, its roads
and bridges had really been built by the old Johnson County. With need
for court trials he thought Mr. Coffeen would not find that $2,000,00 was 
sufficient.

  
"We are (acting) on the supposition that Wyoming is going to be a
great state, that she is going to develop. If she is not we had better
go home today," thought Mr. Harvey.  "I submit to this convention that...
unless every county in the territory is going to proceed to develop immediately,
there is no occasion for a constitutional convention" (p. 304). He 
favored giving the new sections a chance, with $2,000,000 the amount set.
It was not necessary to build a magnificent court house; Converse County
had none and did not want one.

When the final vote was taken, the valuation determined on for a new
county was $2,000,000, while the valuation for the section left to the old
county was to be at least $3,000,000 (p. 305).

THE COURTS
The debate on the report of the Judiciary Committee presents a picture
of certain characteristics of the Constitutional Convention and therefore
of the people of the territory of this time.  Wyoming would soon have a
large population, ran the argument.  It was a territory with boundless
natural resources which, when developed, would make Wyoming prosperous.
The future state, therefore, must have a system of courts comparable to
that of the older states.  In the proposed new state, young men ought to be
eligible for office holding.  Youth should have a chance.  However, conditions
were hard; they must economize; and plenty of qualified men were
available at low salaries.  If a plan for an independent Supreme court were
included in the constitution, calling for extra money, the constitution would
be defeated.  There was no work for an independent Supreme court and
it was merely a lawyers' scheme anyway.

In regard to the proposed independent Supreme court, three questions
especially gave rise to considerable debate: the need of an independent
court, the age qualifications for judges, and their salary.  The debate was
in part the newer section of the state against the old, in part laymen against
the bar.

The Organic Act of the Territory of Wyoming provided for a Supreme
Court of three judges, who also served as district judges.  The Judiciary

116 University of Wyoming Publications Vol. 7

Committee of the convention reported in favor of an independent supreme court, with district judges chosen as such (pp. 332-9).

Mr. Conaway thought the only argument for a continuation of the old system was that of economy (pp. 332-3).  While he granted that economy was important he did not think it outweighed the arguments for the proposed plan.  "I am aware that some persons are disposed to look upon this proposition as a kind of pet scheme of lawyers," he continued, "in which the general public has not much interest. Nothing can be more erroneous than that."  He went on to say that the interest of attorneys and that of the public were the same, the only object of having a Supreme Court being the benefit of a different tribune, of a higher and better tribune than the one which had jurisdiction originally.  It had been the experience of the lawyers of the committee that, in order to get a fair and unbiased consideration, or reconsideration of a question decided by a court of law it was necessary to have a separate supreme court.  A judge who had made up his mind once stood in a very different relation to the question from that of a judge who had not heard it argued.  They must remember that they did not expect always to be poor.  Furthermore, they were reducing the salaries of judges from $3,000 to $2<500.
Mr. Holden desired to offer but a single remark (pp. 522-3) :

The only desire I have upon the face of God's earth is to know I am right, and if I have the approval of my own conscience, feeling that I have the approbation of my Father in Heaven, I tell you, gentlemen of the convention, I don't care if all the people in the universe say I am wrong. . . . I believe, sir, that the principle involved in an independent supreme court is right, and rather than go to the union without an independent supreme court, as the  gentlemen has just remarked, I would prefer to remain in a territorial condition until we can come in with it, and are able to set up business on our own account.  I supposed that the charge that this measure comes from the bar will not properly apply to me.  I am a simple ranchman living ninety miles from the county seat, simply conducting my little ranch and taking care of my cattle and horses. That is all I have or expect to have.

Mr. Campbell pointed out that under the territorial system of three district judges serving as a supreme court, a man made his appeal to a court with one judge against him (pp. 334-7).  Moreover,, there was a sort of free-masonry among the judges.  No judge wanted to be reversed;  nor did the other judges care to reverse one of their associates.  The convention ought to take temptation away from them and provide an independent supreme court to review and correct errors and mistakes made by the lower court.  Wherever "this mongrel court business" had been tried, it had been found to be a mistake and had had to be corrected.  As to expense, he 


No. 6  Peterson--The Constitutional Convention of Wyoming  117

favored four district judges and thought there should be provided for the Supreme Court at least $9,000 a year.  It was a principle as old as jurisdiction itself that a good judge would save his salary to litigants and to the people of the territory.
The report of the Judiciary Committee was accepted by the Committee of the Whole.  This report called for a 30 year age qualification for supreme judges.  Possible changes suggested were 35 and 40 years.  Mr. Palmer, however, felt that such a change would not be right (pp. 484-5).

I think a young man who has been out in this country for 14 or 15 years and has practiced law here certainly ought to be able to be a judge and I don't think it is necessary always or as a rule, that a man should attain the age of thirty-five before he knows enough to be a judge, and I therefore plead in behalf of the young men, don't shut us out.  We have some rights that ought to be respected-- I tell you gentlemen of this convention, if you old men go to work and make it necessary that a man shall be old before he can be a judge, that the young men of the territory will not submit to it.

Mr. Potter remarked that he did not want to be a supreme judge for $2,500 a year, so thought he could talk very well upon the proposition (p. 485).  In his opinion, if a man 30 years old who had practiced law for nine years was not able to be a judge, then he would not be fit when he was 40 years.
Mr. Preston believed

. . . that a man does not have to have a gray head to be versed in the law or to sit upon the bench.  You take the profession in this territory, and I dare say we have as good a bar as any territory in the country, and if you look around among those gentlemen you will find very few gray heads.  I will not cast my vote in support of any part of this file if it is to be done for the purpose of creating offices that are to be filled by men who are broken down in age, men whose memory is not clear, or men who have entirely gone out of practice (pp. 485-6).

He went on to say that there were several young men in the territory not yet 35 who could not be had for any $2,500.  If they intended to be prosperous in the territory they must depend upon the young blood of the territory;  if they were going to shut them out just because they were young men then they would not have any prosperity.
The amendment to change the age requirement from 30 to 40 years was voted down (pp. 486-7).
When the second amendment, to change the age qualification to 35, came up for consideration, Mr. Conway explained that the purpose of the committee in fixing a nine year actual practice requirement with a 30 year

118 University of Wyoming Publications  VOL. 7

age qualification was to make it as favorable to the young men of the Territory as they could (p. 486).  In the opinion of Mr. Preston, "It would be very injurious to the people of Wyoming to make it thirty-five years, for the reason that there are not three Democratic lawyers who are thirty-five years of age in the state, and they will be needed for the supreme court soon."  The amendment was lost and the 30 year age requirement retained (p. 486).
When the question of salary for supreme judges came before the convention for final settlement, Mr. Baxter moved to change the amount from $2,500 to $3,000 so 

. . . that we can at least command reasonably good talent in the profession (p. 488).  We must remember that we are not making this constitution for a few days, and that we are not making it to apply solely to the idea of our own present condition, for we don't expect to remain in our present condition very long.  We look for a considerable industrial growth and development in the next few years, and it does seem to me that a salary of $3,000 for such men as we wish to entrust in the discharge of the judicial duties here is a very small sum, and it should not be any less than that.

Mr. Hoyt pointed out that the Governor's salary had been fixed at $2,500 (p. 489).  He thought that too small and $3,000 too small a salary for judges, but he would not increase the salary of the other.  Mr. Campbell replied that the governor could not (p. 489).  Mr. Holden called attention to the fact that the report did not fix the compensation of the judges but merely stated the minimum, leaving the actual salary to the legislature, to give it up for twenty-five hundred dollars a year."
Mr. Hopkins supposed he belonged to the laymen class of the convention, but he thought they ought to have a supreme court as near perfect as possible (p. 491).  "Now I would object," he suggested, "to fixing the salaries of the judges of the Supreme Court at twenty-five hundred dollars a year on the same principle that I would object to buying a cheap John or snide suit of clothes."
Mr. Teschemacher became convinced, after listening to Senator Stewart's address that


No. 6  Peterson--The Constitutional Convention of Wyoming  119

. . . very soon we are to have a population of millions in this territory or state.  Now if we are going to be a state like New York we will want supreme judges like they have in New York, and should be willing to pay them ten thousand dollars or whatever they are paid there and I say we shall soon become wealthy and can afford to pay our judges high salaries, and I am therefore opposed to limiting this to twenty-five hundred dollars, for if you do it won't be long before we shall need to call another constitutional convention to submit new amendments to this constitution, and that will take more money than it will take to pay the judges for their services.  I shall oppose this amendment to increase to five thousand because I believe it will jeopardize and defeat our constitution, and I shall vote for thirty-five hundred because I believe it a good limit and will answer our demands for fifteen or twenty years to come (p. 491).

That legislators would have sufficient good sense to know what the services of a supreme judge were worth without their fixing "a little weakly salary" was the opinion of Mr. Russell (p. 492).  He proposed that the matter of salary be left entirely to the wisdom of the legislators, declaring, 

I have sat in this chair until I can't sit here any longer and listened to the arguments advanced by the gentlemen in regard to the salary of a supreme judge.  If a constitution is to be prepared by this convention to meet the hobbies of a few of the delegates to this convention, then I say to the people of Wyoming, don't vote for the constitution for it won't better your position in life.  I ask you, gentlemen of the convention, if you expect Wyoming to be as it is today for any great length of time?  Every indication points to the fact that Wyoming in the next two or three years will be four or five times as large as it is today, and yet you gentlemen would ask to have this fixed at twenty-five hundred dollars.  If we grow as we expect to grow, in my judgement, there will be enough business in the Supreme Court to justify us in paying a salary of ten thousand dollars within the next ten years.

Mr. Russel finally moved that the salary of supreme judges should be left to the legislature.  This motion was voted on favorably by the Committee of the Whole and finally included in the Constitution as well as the provision for an independent supreme court whose members were at least 30 years of age (p. 533).

TAXATION
Who shall pay taxes?  What forms shall taxation take?  Should property be taxed or income from property?  There and many other questions of like nature have been asked throughout the ages.  It was quite natural, therefore, that taxation became one of the big problems of Wyoming's Constitutional Convention.  The cattle industry, which had been a mainstay of the tax system of the Territory, seemed to have passed its peak,

120 University of Wyoming Publications VOL. 7
and many delegates felt that the tax lead should be shared by the newer activities of the community. Coal mining was developing as an important industry and the question was as to the best method of taxing it. Those who were interested in coal mining argued that the new state ought to bear down lightly on the relatively new industry and give it a chance to develop. Others, however, felt that coal had not been carrying its fair share. A sharp debate between those who represented the coal counties and the noncoal counties followed the report of the Committee on Taxation, Revenue and Public Debt. The delegates from the coal counties and those who represented coal companies favored a continuation of the tax on coal land, while those who were not connected in any way with the coal mining wanted to introduce a tonnage tax.
Mr. Hay offered an amendment to the Committee's report which he stated was taken from the Colorado constitution (p. 637). It continued the territorial method of taxing coal land. "We all know," he said, "that the mining development of Colorado since the adoption of their constitution has been phenomenal, and I don't believe the conditions here in Wyoming are very different from what they were in Colorado in 1875."
Mr. Brown opposed the amendment, partly because of the results he had observed in Colorado (pp. 637-48). He agreed that the output of mineral in that state had been phenomenal but the sad part was that not a cent of the millions from the mines had reached the state treasury. Here in Wyoming the great wealth was in coal. Coal mining was the largest industry in the Territory yet it paid the least possible share of the public expense. Income to the Territory from coal now was $1,250 per year while the expense for an inspector alone was over $3.000. He favored a tax of 1 1/2 cents per ton, which would pay half the expenses of government concluding

Our coal mines are the source of our wealth and if this coal business that is today paying a larger profit on the investment than any other business within the limits of our territory, cannot pay its just proportion of public expenses, there should be some reason why it should not. . . . I tell you, gentlemen, this tax will be the lifeblood of the state, and will keep it up and help support it and save the people of the state from burdensome taxation.

Mr. Hay replied that he did not know of any reason "why we should get this revenue from this particular industry, and ignore all the other interests. Why not tax all the agricultural products and everything else we ship out of the territory, to be consumed outside of the territory" (p. 643). He did not care to go into the figures of the immense profits made by the Union Pacific on coal produced at their Rock Springs mines. Whether they made $5.00 or $75.00 per ton had nothing to do with the principle of 


No. 6 Peterson-The Constitutional Convention of Wyoming 121
making this infant coal industry subject to a direct tax, which they did not impose upon the output of any other mining industry.
Mr. Clark of Uinta County objected to the tonnage tax on coal because it departed so far from the ordinary manner and system of taxation (pp. 646-53). It was a direct tax, which except in cases of necessity, ought to be adjusted and levied according to the value of the property taxed. Further, such a tax would bring in too much money to the state treasury, more than to the county treasury, which was unjust. He asked that coal be put on the same footing as other mineral products. He could not see why the output of a coal mine should be taxed while the output of a silver mine was not, admitting that perhaps he felt the injustice more since he had personally invested in coal mines.
In opposing the proposed tonnage tax, Mr. Teschemacher asked, "Why should we take the one product on which we base the future development of the state of Wyoming, why should we take that one product and say, 'Let us put a tax on development?' . . . The consumer pays the tax, this is good Democratic doctrine, but mighty poor Republican doctrine, and I am much surprised to hear it from a man whose Republicanism has never been doubted" (pp. 653-5).
Mr. Potter thought the matter ought to be left to the legislature, not embraced in the Constitution as a fundamental law (p. 655). "The reason why I would leave this to the legislature," he explained, "is that if at one session it is thought advisable, they can enact a law that these mines shall be taxed upon their gross product, and if within a short time it is shown to be unnecessary or has not worked well, they make repeal that law at the next session, but they could not repeal a constitutional provision."
Mr. Brown's objection to leaving taxation of coal to the legislature was that

 . . every monied corporation in Wyoming engaged in coal mining will come into your legislature as a politician and seek to have that tax put down at the lowest possible point. You force them to do it by leaving it open to legislation, in order that they may serve their own interests, and I don't blame them any, you and I would do just the same thing. . . . As you have seen in the past men elected to our legislatures wearing the brass collars of the great railroad corporation, you will see just such men wear the brass collars of the great monied mining corporations (pp. 664-9).

Mr. Riner wanted to ask Mr. Brown whether he thought that with a 2 1/2 cent tax per Wyoming could compete with Colorado coal (pp. 657-8).
Mr. Coffeen asserted that if they were to get any income from coal it must be taxed as it was mined. Coal land was undervalued for tax pur-

122 University of Wyoming Publications VOL. 7
poses. Then, too, more than half of the coal mined in the United States was paying a tax of 3 cents a ton; so he could not see why Wyoming coals should not pay half that sum (pp. 658-9).

The opposition to the tonnage tax made much of the fact that agricultural products were not taxed as such. In answering this argument, Mr. Brown declared that

    If you tax the product of the farm instead of the farm itself, and tax it at a fair ratio, you are getting the best taxation that can exist under the sun...It is the only just method of taxation that can be arrived at, because in that way you get at the proposition that my friend Potter presents, the exact product, which gives the value (pp. 664-9).

Mr. Hoyt feared that the owner of the mine would "burden the tax upon those mining the coal, and will give less wages for the labor which they perform" (pp.671-3). It must also be remembered that many of the consumers live in Wyoming and not in other states only. It was a question as to how such a tax would affect industry. It was unanimously agreed by those with whom he had talked that Wyoming's great need was capital. 

     Shall we build a Chinese wall around Wyoming and prevent the investor from coming in to develop its resources?...Why has Colorado become the great state she is? Because she has welcomed capital, she has not closed her gates, she has opened them wide, and Colorado today is a workshop...We have laid down a constitution as broad as the world, as wide as humanity, and shall we disfigure it by putting into it a tax, a special tax for the main support of the government? Let us rather adopt a broader, more statesmanlike policy, as it seems to me, and bide our time patiently, leaving this matter to be settled in the future.

On a vote by the Committee of the Whole the amendment offered by Mr. Hay was lost (p. 673). 

The following day the Committee of the Whole resumed the consideration of the report of the Committee on Taxation, to meet the objections of those who opposed the tonnage tax. Mr. Grown introduced an amendment to permit the taxing of surface improvements of all mines with no tax on the land, but a tonnage tax based on value to be fixed by the legislature, providing, however that coal be taxed at the rate of not less than 1 cent a ton for state purposes and 1/2 cent a ton for county purposes (pp. 683). Mr. Vagner at once attacked the amendment on the ground that giving the state the larger share was unfair to the county.

Mr. Palmer insinuated that the tonnage tax was a "scheme of raising a revenue by holding up the coal counties to do it." He was surprised at the idea of taxing the man who developed his coal property while letting the man who was holding his coal land for speculative purposes escape.

No. 6 Peterson-The Constitutional Convention of Wyoming     123

     I say to you that the people of Sweetwater County will not support this measure; they won't support your constitution, and I assure you the people of Sweetwater, and Carbon, and Uinta Counties will not be held up in such manner as this...You will destroy the coal proprietors of Wyoming, for they cannot compete with the Colorado men, if you are going to put a tariff on coal, and therefore I say to you, if this provision goes in, the people of Sweetwater will be compelled to vote against this constitution (pp. 683-4).

Mr. Hoyt thought the tax ought to be levied on the ton value of the coal and not on tonnage only. He also thought the counties ought to have the right to reserve a larger share to themselves. Finally, he was opposed to taxing mining on its output in its infancy, but if it was necessary to levy a tax, such a tax ought to be "broad and equal and just in every particular" (pp.691-2).

Mr. Clark opposed Mr. Brown's amendment on the ground that it fixed the tax on coal in the Constitution; he thought taxing of all mining ought to be left to the legislature (pp. 692-3).

After some further debate Mr. Elliott moved to strike from Mr. Brown's amendment the proviso which fixed a minimum tax on coal (pp. 695-6). He gave as a reason for his motion that while he was "perfectly satisfied from the course of the convention that the proper way to tax these lands is to tax them upon the output, but I am further satisfied that we are not prepared to fix a minimum or maximum rate on the products of coal mines at this time."

Since it seemed impossible to secure inclusion of a coal land tax in the Constitution and since a large number of the delegates favored a tonnage tax, the coal interests, with those who opposed putting such a provision in the Constitution, combined to pass Mr. Elliott's amendment, thus referring the question to the legislature (p. 697). 15

SIDE LIGHTS OF THE CONVENTION

Mr. George Wilson, a member of the Council of the First Territorial Legislature, wrote the Convention in regard to a suitable name for the proposed state. He thought the name of the state had much to do with its future success. Uinta, he thought, was a much prettier name than Wyoming and it was one that belonged to the locality and was not imported from the east. "Wyoming was chosen for you when helpless. When you become full fledged freemen choose your own name." Mr. Wilson's suggestion was not seriously considered by the convention.

15 In an address given before a meeting of pioneers of Cheyenne on Constitution Making, Judge Brown who fought so hard for a constitutional coal tonnage tax in the Convention said that "the most serious mistake in our Constitution was lack of legislation, failure to fix a tonnage tax upon the output of coal mined in our State being perhaps one of the gravest omissions." Published in Proceedings and Collections of the Wyoming State Historical Deportment, 1919-1920, pp. 96-108.

124 University of Wyoming Publications VOL. 7
The President of the Convention appointed a committee of five members to fix the compensation of the officers and employees and to suggest ways and means for providing funds to pay all the expenses. The delegates did not know whether they would ever get compensation, but Congress finally appropriated money for this purpose. Cheyenne business men raised $700.00 to pay the operating expenses of the Convention.
When the Committee on Credentials gave its report September 2, it found all 10 counties represented. Forty-five delegates were in attendance, 4 arrived later, and 6 elected failed to arrive. Of the 49 delegates, 45 signed the constitution.
More than a third of the delegates were attorneys and they did most of the debating. At one time a motion was made to limit speakers to one address and that only 2 1/2 minutes long. Mr. Coffeen pointed out that the non-professional members of the convention has been very quiet and depended largely on a single delegate to make speeches in their behalf. If that delegate were limited in this way, the result would be a one-sided discussion unless some other non-professional members would come forward.
As the Convention progressed some delegates tended to lose interest. On September 18 only 17 members answered the roll call. The sergeant-at-arms was ordered to bring in truants. Six additional members came in and the Convention took up the business of the day. The President suggested that they "were all anxious to go home" and expressed the fear that they might soon be left without a quorum. On September 23 Mr. Elliott suggested that they might have to drop the names of some members off the roll if the convention could not compel them to attend. Mr. Burritt declared that "in three or four cases members have stood here and asked to be excused by reason of important business who are now enjoying themselves on a pleasure jaunt."
The committees were also having some trouble about attendance at the committee meetings. Mr. Baxter reported that many members of his committee had found it necessary to be absent from hearings and that his report was signed by only two members.
The discussion of legislative representation aroused rather strong feeling between the north and south sections of the territory. Reflecting this, Mr. Elliott of Johnson County asserted that "it is simply expecting them to rivet upon their necks permanently a yoke the temporary wearing of which has galled them so bitterly. I say here in the presence of this convention, that no proposition will be acceptable to the people of northern Wyoming that does not remove in some way the balance of power from where it now stands."
The north also felt that the Union Pacific counties had by a system of log rolling, taken unfair advantage of the north in the location of public


No. 6 Peterson-The Constitutional Convention of Wyoming 125
buildings. "I am free to say to this convention," said Mr. Baxter, "that I used every possible means I had in the last legislature to prevent the general grab that was participated in. . . . It (the capitol building) was completed by the fear of Laramie County that unless they got the money at that time, there was some danger of their never getting it at all, and because they believed it a matter of personal necessity at that time. . . . I have never seen the deaf and dumb asylum, and I have never seen the poor farm at Lander, and I say we had no use for them, but in order to reward these counties, in order to reconcile them to this general grab from the treasury, these things were given to them."
Rule 4 prohibited smoking during the sessions of the convention. As time went on, the rule became irksome to some members. On September 19, Mr. Hay moved that the rule be suspended. "It is pretty hard," he said, "to sit here all day without any of the comforts of life."
In sending a bouquet of flowers to the president, Mrs. Warren expressed the hope that the members of the convention would act in accordance with the views expressed by the president in speaking on the subject of woman suffrage. President Brown expressed the hope that the delegates would consider her request when they took action upon that subject.
The oath of office was administered to the delegates by Justice W. P. Carroll.
Mr. Chaplin introduced the following as a preamble for the constitution: "We, the people of Wyoming, pledging ourselves to support and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in order to receive the full enjoyment of our rights as American citizens do establish and ordain this constitution."
A banquet given the delegates of the Constitutional Convention was reported by The Cheyenne Daily Leader as follows: "The banquet tendered to the members of the constitutional convention by the Laramie delegation at the Cheyenne Club last evening was in every respect one of the most conspicuously pleasant gatherings ever held in the city. The hour set for the banquet was 8 o'clock, By that hour tables had been arranged about three sides of the room. They glittered with all the bravery of cut glass and silverware and were beautiful with roses displayed in lavish profusion. . . . The menu . . . was a pretty gem of gastronomy."
In commenting on the adopted constitution The Cheyenne Daily Leader reported that "the chief and almost the only criticism to be heard upon their work is that in several instances the constitution which they have framed has usurped the legislative function."
The original report of the Committee on Education provided for the permanent location of the University Laramie. Mr. Clark opposed this

126 University of Wyoming Publications Vol. 7
provision, saying he would not vote for any proposition that permanently
located a public building or institution in any one place. Mr. Brown held
that the only objection to Mr. Clark's plan was that it put the University
on wheels, to be wheeled around anywhere at will. Mr. Preston, however,
thought it a good idea to put the University on wheels. He hoped that
eventually it would be moved into the central part of the state.
Only half of the members of the Committee on Legislative Department
were in attendance when the committee drew up its report. Mr.
Preston, of Fremont County, Mr. Elliott of Johnson County, and Mr.
Coffeen of Sheridan County, all from northern counties, made the
majority report in favor of one senator from each county. With an increasing
number of northern counties this would have given the control of
the Senate to the north. A sharp debate followed. Eventually the majority
report was defeated.
Perhaps the Article on Irrigation is the most original part of the constitution
and has proved of greatest value to the people of Wyoming. While
the personnel of the convention Committee on Irrigation was excellent it
also had the advice of Dr. Elwood Mead, late Commissioner of Reclamation. 
Mr. Mead came to Wyoming as Territorial Engineer in 1888 and
served as first State Engineer. Concerning his work, Secretary of Interior
Harold L. Ickes says: "He showed the way when he formulated the water
provisions of the Constitution of the State of Wyoming, which he served
as its first State Engineer, where some of the knottiest problems in the arid
regions of the world existed. Wyoming, at Dr. Mead's urging, discarded
the riparian theory of water ownership and adopted a system under which
the State retained all water rights. Development of this primary resource
was retained under the jurisdiction of the State. Revolutionary in the field
of water law at the time, the plan has been adopted by other Western States
and by many other nations."
Miss Louise S. Smith, the official stenographer of the Convention, was
very popular with the delegates. In appreciation of her work and as an
expression of their friendship the delegates presented her with a "lovely
diamond brooch." Miss Smith is at present assistant cashier of The Stock
Growers' National Bank at Cheyenne.
The only surviving delegates are William E. Chaplin and H. S. Elliott.
Mr. Chaplin makes his home at Van Nuys, California, and Mr. Elliott is a
United States Commissioner at Seattle, Washington.
Senator O'Mahoney, according to Professor Arthur R. Himbert of the
Law School of the University of Wyoming, has stated repeatedly that the
Constitution of Wyoming is a remarkable document. Because of the belief
he borrowed the theory and declaration of policy of his policy of his federal chartering


No. 6 Peterson-The Constitutional Convention of Wyoming 127
proposal from it. In the Borah-O'Mahoney Bill, S. 330, Section I (2) The
Wyoming Constitution, Article X, Section 2, is quoted substantially verbatim:
That the franchise, powers, and privileges of all corporations are
derived from the people and are granted by the governments of the
states (or of the United States) as agents of the people for the
public good and general welfare.
Adoption of the constitution by the convention
As the Convention was drawing to a close, the question of procedure
for final adoption of the constitution was considered. The schedule of the
constitution called for a special election in November of that year. Some
of the delegates were rather dubious about that procedure, fearing it would
make a poor impression on Congress. They wondered if it would not be
better to submit the constitution for Congressional approval before popular
approval was sought. Mr. Teschemacher called attention to the fact that
the New Mexico convention was submitting its constitution to Congress
before seeking popular approval. If Congress passed an Enabling Act, a
special election could be called. If Congress took no action, a vote could
be taken on the constitution at the general election of 1890, thus saving the
expense of a special election. Futhermore, he thought that "no matter how
important the subject at a special election you cannot call out the general
vote, as at the general election, when you will get a true expression of opinion of the people upon the work of this convention" (p. 777).
To these arguments Mr. Hay replied that
Congress would not be very apt to pass an enabling act or take
any steps until they found out whether or not the people were
going to ratify a constitution that fifty-five men made.... It
seems to me that we will be forced to carry out the plan already
started on, and we will mix matters up very much if we attempt
to deviate from that plan now (p. 778).
To Mr. Clark it occured that "if we call on Congress we ought to be
prepared to send in our card at least, and this constitution is the best card
we can send in, and a large majority in favor of this constitution" (p. 778).
Mr. Brown reminded the delegates that
Senator Stewart, when here the other day, said that if we would
prepare our constitution, submit it to the people, have it ratified,
and then come down to Washington and say Wyoming wants to
be a state, we will be a state.... We don't care anything about this enabling act, but we want to go down there demanding admission,
and when we demand it, congress will admit us, and that
is the kind of an enabling act we want, I take it (p. 779).




128 University of Wyoming Publication Vol. 7
After this discussion, the plan to ask Congress for an Enabling Act
before calling for a popular vote on the constitution was dropped (p. 779).
On Monday morning the Committee on Revision and Adjustment reported
that it had completed its revision of the constitution and was ready
to submit it to the Convention for final reading (p. 847). The president
announced that it would be read by articles and the vote taken on each
article. After a number of minor changes the president of the convention
called for a report of the Committee on Enrollment (p. 863). Mr. Teschemacher
replied that the committee was ready to report. "They have the
constitution properly enrolled as amended" (p. 863). The president of the
convention then announced that "the constitution having been reported by
the committee on enrollment as correctly enrolled, and having been finally
read at length, the question now arises upon its adoption as a whole." The
vote on adoption was then put and on roll call the constitution was adopted
by a unanimous vote of 37, 12 being absent. The president then declared
the constitution of Wyoming adopted by the convention (pp. 883-9).
Mr. Clark offered, and the convention adopted, a resolution requesting
the governor "to issue a proclamation calling a special election for the adoption
or ratification of this constitution, to occur at the time in said proclamation
mentioned" (p. 863).
While a committee had been appointed to prepare a memorial to accompany
the Constitution, setting forth the reasons why Wyoming should
be admitted as a state, another committee of the convention formulated an
address to the voters of the Territory stating the reasons for ratifying. The
entire convention was to consider itself an executive committee to urge the
people to turn out and vote for the Constitution (pp. 116-20).
The committee considered these the chief merits of the Constitution:
1. It is the first Constitution adopted by man which gives to each
citizen the same rights guaranteed to every other citizen.
2. Under its provisions pure elections are practically guaranteed,
and economy of administration assured.
3. Restriction upon legislation and loose appropriations of public
moneys are clear and positive.
4. The salaries of officers have been fixed according to the value
of the service rendered and in proportion to the means of the
people to pay.
5. The establishment of compulsory courts of arbitration to settle
disputes between corporations and their employees, the protection
of laborers in mines, the prohibition of the importation
of foreign police to usurp local authority are all measures that
commend themselves.
6. The extravagance in the management of county affairs that has
prevailed in the past has been circumscribed and rendered impossible.


No. 6 Peterson-The Constitutional Convention of Wyoming 129
Mr. Hay moved "that the signing of the constitution be now commenced,
and that the secretary of the convention call the roll, and as each
member's name is called he sign the constitution." This motion was adopted
without opposition (p. 864).
In the gathering gloom of a glorious September evening, with
a gorgeous sunset of strange and thrilling beauty visible from the
large windows of the magnificent capitol building, thirty-five members.
of the Constitutional Convention signed the instrument which
they have framed during the four weeks just past. There was
scarcely any ceremony about the final work of the body and while
the exuberant spirits of some of the younger members found vent
in sallies of wit, there was still something impressive about the act,
and a hush fell over the throng about the presiding officer's desk
when the members one by one affixed their signatures to the document
which will in a great measure control the destiny of what is
certain to become a leader in the sisterhood of states, a brilliant
star in the firmament of the republic, an occupant of a place in the
front rank in the onward march of advancement.
To some perhaps came the thought that an instrument similar
in import, but formulated under far different circumstances, had
been signed by the first Americans-men who pledged their lives,
property and most sacred honor to the enforcement of the sentiments
expressed. There was no necessity for this, but each signer
has declared that he will spare no effort to accomplish the objects
of the convention-statehood for Wyoming, wise and liberal laws
for her people, and economy in government.
President Brown was the first signer. His signature is in the
bold hand which indicates the man of force. Each letter is perfectly
formed. Secretary Jeffrey came next. He is a splendid
penman. Then came Ex-Governor Baxter in whose signature one
can read character. The others followed in alphabetical order,
President Brown calling each member forward. 16
President Brown was presented with "an elegant and massive Knight
Templar charm, Judge Conaway of Sweetwater making the presentation,
to which Judge Brown made a very neat and appropriate response." The
gold pen with which the document was signed was presented to Chief Clerk
J. K. Jeffrey.
"The convention closed its labors with pleasant and congratulatory
speeches and resolutions of thanks to the officers from page up to the president."
Then "the members dispersed for their homes with the best of good
feelings and highest appreciation for each others' honesty and ability." 17
On October 4, Governor Warren issued a proclamation calling a special
election on November 5, 1889. The vote resulted in 6,272 for adoption and
1923 against adoption, a total of 8,195 votes cast. At the previous general

16 Cheyenne Daily Leader. October 1, 1889.
17 Ibid. October 1, 1889.

130 University of Wyoming Publications Vol. 7

election 18,010 had been cast. Two facts account for the small number, that electors are interested in men rather than in measures, and that the weather was rather bad in certain places. Sheridan County was the only one to reject the constitution while Johnson County, also a center of opposition, gave the constitution a majority of only 44.
           The Constitution was now ready for action by Congress. Political conditions were favorable for admission. With Benjamin Harrison as president, both houses of Congress were controlled by the Republicans and Wyoming was expected to be a Republican state. Delegate Carey introduced a bill in the House which provided for Wyoming's admission as a state.
           The Democrats objected to Wyoming's admission on the grounds of the irregular procedure of the preliminary proceedings under which the Constitution was framed, the small election vote indicating an insufficient population or lack of popular support of the movement, the requirement of compulsory education, and the constitutional provision for equal suffrage.
           After some debate the bill passed both houses of Congress, and President Harrison, on July 10, 1890, signed the bill which admitted Wyoming as a state [*18 Session Laws of the State of Wyoming, 1890-91, pp.27-32*]. On the following day, Acting Governor John W. Meldrum issued the official proclamation of statehood.


No. 6 Peterson-The Constitutional Convention of Wyoming 131

BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Journal and Debates of the Constitutional Convention of the State of Wyoming. The Daily Sun, Cheyenne, Wyoming. 1893.
2. Proceedings and Collections of the Wyoming State Historical Department. 1919-20.
3. Session Laws of Wyoming Territory. 1888.
4. Session Laws of the State of Wyoming. 1890-91.

NEWSPAPERS
5. Cheyenne Daily Leader. Cheyenne, Wyoming. October 1, 1889.
6. Cheyenne Daily Sun. Cheyenne, Wyoming. June 16, September 1, September 4, September 5, September 7, September 8, September 18, September 28, 1889.
7. Laramie Daily Boomerang. Laramie, Wyoming. June 7, June 29, July 19, 1889.

HOW WOMAN SUFFRAGE
CAME TO WYOMING
(1869)

HOW WOMAN SUFFRAGE
CAME TO WYOMING
(1869)
BY
GRACE RAYMOND HEBARD

MRS. JUSTICE MORRIS

HOW WOMAN SUFFRAGE
CAME TO WYOMING (1869)

WE are not only indebted to the State of Virginia
for eight of our Presidents of the United States,
but for two other noted persons. It is a far cry from
London, England, to Cheyenne, Wyoming, yet the first
woman to take the oath of office for membership in the
House of Commons in the British Parliament in 1919, was
a Virginian, Lady Nancy Langhorne Astor. The man
who was largely responsible for the act of Wyoming's
Territorial Legislature in 1869, granting to women the
right of suffrage was also a Virginian, the Honorable
William H. Bright. The time elapsing since the first of 
these two historical events, covers a period of unparalleled
recognition of woman's freedom politically, industrially,
educationally, and socially.
On November 11, 1869, after the evening meal, sitting
before an ill-smelling kerosene lamp, a man carefully and
thoughtfully adjusted a fresh steel pen into a much worn
and inkstained penholder, when with lips drawn into a
thin, straight line of determination, he bent forward, dipping
the pen into the ink, and commenced to write a document
which was destined to become a modern Magna
Charta. The place was Cheyenne, Wyoming, the man
was the Honorable William H. Bright of South Pass
City, Territory of Wyoming, the written document was
the draft of a bill to be introduced in the first Territorial
Legislature of the recently born Commonwealth called
Wyoming. The contents of this document is of vital interest
to us in these days, and for all time. It has attracted

[*at*]tracted more interest and comment than any other one
article of civil affairs unless it be that of the Constitution
of the United States, or the ancient Magna Charta of
King John in 1215, when his barons with clanking swords
at Runnymede demanded constitutional recognition that
secured personal liberty and civil rights.
Thus for the first time in history there now was a document
containing the germ of life that was soon to be born
into the world bringing with it real freedom and equality
of the ballot for the omen in that great stretch of land,
frontier in every fiber, then as now called Wyoming.
This bill constructed on the the evening in November,
1869, after fair weather in the Legislative Council, or
Senate, and a stormy voyage in the House of Representatives
in our first Territorial legislature, became a law 
on the 10th of December, 1869, the. bill as enacted remaining
upon Wyoming's Statute Book unchanged for twenty-one
years of territorial days, receiving only form changes
when incorporated in our State Constitution.  This Magna
Charta, as originally drafted by Mr. Bright, after running
the gauntlet of ridicule and doubt, became a law, to
be changed only in one particular, i. e., the age at which
women might vote, which was placed originally at eighteen
years and was afterward changed to twenty-one years.
The sacred document read as follows:
AN ACT TO GRANT TO THE WOMEN OF
WYOMING TERRITORY THE RIGHT OF
SUFFRAGE AND TO HOLD OFFICE.
Be It Enacted by the Council and the House of Representatives
of the Territory of Wyoming:
SECTION 1.  That every woman of the age of eighteen
years,* residing in this territory, may, at any election to
_____
*Eighteen years was amended to twenty-one.
[2]



be holden under the laws thereof, cast her vote.  And her
right to the elective franchise and to hold office shall be
the same under the elective laws of the territory, as those
of electors.
SEC. 2.  This act shall take effect and be in force from 
and after its passage.
The detailed steps of the enactment of the "Female
Suffrage Act", Chapter 31, Session Laws of Wyoming,
1869, are full of interest.  Early in the morning of November
12, 1869, Mr. Bright, who had been sent to Wyoming's 
first Territorial Legislature from South Pass City, Sweetwater
County, and had been honored by his co-lawmakers
by the election to speakership of the of the Council (now called
Senate), called the Council to order, had the Journal of
the previous day read and approved.  He then called to
the Speaker's chair Rev. T. W. Poole, and from the floor
gave notice that "on Monday or some subsequent day he
would introduce a bill for Woman's Rights".*  There was
no comment made.  There was no commotion created.
Two weeks after this open challenge for suffrage 
equality, Mr. Bright, on November 27th, in a quiet and
self-poised manner, without ostentation, oratory or previous
agitation, introduced his bill, the contents of which
involved a question of rights, big with mighty consequences,
to be known for all time to come as Council Bill
No. 70 of the Territory of Wyoming.  There was no
tremendous applause from the gallery.  There was no gallery.
There was no applauding of gloved hands, for
there were no feminine hands in the Council Chamber.
The bill born into the Legislature without birth announcement,
now heralded with flowers and congratulations, was
______
*Quotations are exact reproductions from Council and House Journals,
Territory of Wyoming, 1869.
[3]

reverently placed by Mr. Bright on the Speaker's desk,
there to die or to become a law.
     There is no record that this Council challenged the act, 
which, in the event of becoming a law, would disturb 
anciently established voting principles, nor was there any 
serious opposition in the Council to the bill, a bill written 
in such simple, comprehensive style, presented in such a 
modest and yet determined way, for Colonel Bright, as he
was called, was a quiet though forceful lawmaker.
     During the morning of November 30th, three days
after the introduction of the measure, the "bill was read
for the third time and put upon its final passage"; without
debate the bill passed the Council by a safe majority, six 
members voting for the bill, two against the measure,
and one member absent.* Of the nine members of the
Council who voted on this measure, all have gone on "The
Trail of One Way", no one remaining to tell of the motive
that prompted his vote on this important measure. "So
passed the Bill", as recorded in the Council Journal.
     But the path of the bill in the House of Representatives, 
to which the bill had gone on the afternoon of its
 successful passage in the morning of November 10th, 
had many obstacles to encounter, the most difficult to overcome 
being cutting satire and amusing ridicule, always
dangerous forms of argumentation to refute. In this
lower branch of the Legislature the hydra-headed monster
of intense bitterness to the bill unmasked itself, showing
a predetermined intent to throttle the bill before it came
to final passage. The opposition was organized, commanded 
and directed by Mr. Ben Sheeks, a member of

*"Yeas: Messrs. Brady, Lacock, Murrin, Poole, Wilson and Mr. President 
(Bright). Nays: Messrs. Rockwell and Whitehead. Absent: Mrs.
Wardman."
[4]


the House, coming from South Pass City, the same typical
western gold-mining camp from which Mr. Bright had
been sent as a member of the Council. Bill No. 70 from
the Council was read on the afternoon of the morning it
was received and "referred to a committee of the whole 
House and made a special order for 7 p.m." that evening.
When the evening hour had arrived it became very evident
that Mr. Sheeks had not been idle, for the House reconsidered 
its action of the afternoon "to vote on the bill at
the evening session" by referring the bill to a special committee. 
Ben Sheeks was marking time! The Legislature
then adjourned until the next day.
     Late in the afternoon of the forty-fourth day of the 
session, December 5th, Bill No. 70 was again taken up
for consideration. At once Mr. Sheeks was on his feet
moving "to postpone the consideration of the bill indefinitely. 
Lost." Action, however, was postponed until the 
evening session, when the bill was made, again, "the special
order for 7 p. m." With the coming of the evening came
also Mr. Sheeks marshalling his forces for a final and 
effective blow. The supporters of the bill also had not 
been idle. In this evening session the House resolved
itself into a committee of the whole for the consideration
of Bill No. 70. After some time spent in consideration of
the bill, the committee arose and reported through their 
chairman that "the committee had considered Council Bill
No. 70 under consideration and reported same back to the 
House." It was then moved that the report be accepted. 
"Lost." Mr. Sheeks then moved to adjourn. "Lost."
"Moved to reconsider the vote on the reception of the report 
of the committee of the whole relative to Council 
Bill No. 70. Lost." "Mr. Sheeks moved again to ad-

[5]

journ. Lost" "Mr. Strong moved to adjourn. Lost." 
"At 7:55 on motion the House adjourned."

Late in the afternoon of December 6th Bill No. 70
"was taken up, when Mr. Sheets sprang to the floor and
moved to take a recess until 7p.m. Lost." By this time
"7 p.m." had become a magic hour!  It was then moved
"that consideration of the bill be postponed until July 4,
1870," a year when the Legislature would not be in session
and on a day that would be in any year a holiday.
"Motion lost." "Mr. Sheets then moved to postpone
the bill until Saturday next.  Lost." Mr. Curran then
arose and moved to insert in Section 2 of the bill the
words "in three years or sooner if discharged", making
the bill to read that the new law would be in effect and
force three years or sooner if discharged, being simply a
matter of horse play and an act of confusion.  At this
juncture Mr. Sheets again bobbed to his feet with another
amendment and moved that the bill read in place of
"women", "all colored women and squaws", thereby preventing,
if the bill became a law, white women from voting.
Mr. Sheets also offered an amendment, the first one 
that seemed reasonable, that the word twenty-one be substituted
for eighteen years for voting age of women.  But
these two amendments were also lost, showing that there
was a turn in the road and Mr. Sheets and his followers
were losing ground.  Then came a proposed amendment
to strike out the word "women" and substitute the word
"ladies". The also was quickly tabled.

At this point, and it was a dangerous one in the passage
of the bill, those who favored the bill moved that
the rules be suspended and that the bill be put on its
passage.  The final vote stood seven for Bill No. 70; four
[6]

against; absent, one.  Mr. Sheets, remaining true to his
convictions, voted against the bill.*  Even after the bill
had been passed with a safe majority, Mr. Wilson moved
a reconsideration of the action on the bill, the motion
promptly being voted down.  The "Woman's Right Bill",
as it was called, was now ready for the signature of
Governor John A. Campbell, a Republican, the entire membership
of both Houses being composed of Democrats.
This first Legislature lasted for 49 days.  It was on the
forty-ninth day of the session, which adjourned at midnight,
December 10, 1869, that at 8:30 o'clock P.M., Governor
Campbell affixed his signature to the bill, thus making
it a law, effective at once. **  Thus the women of the
Territory of Wyoming had given them, without their
asking, the distinction of being the first women in the
world to have the right of unlimited suffrage, being toasted
that evening by the men as "Lovely Ladies, once our superiors,
now our equals."

Governor Campbell signed Bill No. 70 because he believed
that the right of women to vote and hold office in
Wyoming was a rational and logical sequence to some
of the laws which had been passed by this first Legislature,
I.e., giving the women the right to acquire an possess
property, giving equal compensation to both sexes where
equal qualifications to teach were the same. *** Moreover,
and to the point, before Governor Campbell had come into
the West, he had attended a convention in Ohio where
Susan B. Anthony gave one of her characteristic and logi-

*"Ayes: Messrs. Abbey, Douglass, Herrick, Miller, Menefee, Sebree and
Wilson.  Nays: Messrs. Holbrook, Sheeks, Strong and Mr. Speaker
(Curran). Absent: Mr.  Hass."
** The law reads, "Woman Suffrage," which, as Chapter 31, Session Laws,
1869, is headed, "Female Suffrage."
*** See Chap. V, Cap. XIX, and Chap. 7, Sec. 9, Session Laws, 1869.

[7]

cal addressed, which, though attending the meeting in the spirit of an antagonist toward the enfranchisement of women, so impressed Mr. Campbell that he became not only a convert to the movement but a consistent supporter of woman suffrage.
Frequent inquiries have been made during the years that women have had the right to vote in Wyoming as to the reasons why Hon. William H. Bright so valiantly championed the cause of woman suffrage.
In the economic world we are always looking for by-products, sometimes finding them quite as valuable as the original production. I believe that suffrage came to Wyoming as a by-product of the Civil War.
Mr. Bright was a Colonel in the Southern Army, a Democrat by birth and inclination, a Virginian of the true type, a man whose parents were not in a position to give him an education, and although in later years he wrote for the press and was unusually well informed, he once said of himself, "I have never been to school a day in my life, and where I learned to read and write I do not know.." After the war Mr. Bright, with many other southern young men, for Mr. Bright was only 35 years of age when he served in the Wyoming Legislature, drifted to the great and untried West, to the land of the Rocky Mountains and the long stretches of level prairie. The South was still, in 1869, suffering from the period of reconstruction, industries were at a standstill, factories and cottonfields had been destroyed. With the impatience of youth these young men could not wait for the rebuilding of the South, and, as a result, migrated where opportunity seemed to reach out a beckoning hand. To the newly created Territory of Wyoming came many of these able and well-educated

[8]


young men, with them William H. Bright and his wife, going directly to South Pass City in the central part of the territory recently created. In this now "Ghost City", which in 1869 boasted of 6,000 or more inhabitants of many races, colors and creeds, the Bright family in their small log cabin had many friends, no one more choice and intimate than Mrs. Esther Hobart Morris, who with her husband and three sons had also come to the great undeveloped West.* Many were the serious talks around the fireplace of this tiny cabin and in the glimmer of the sputtering candles various articles were written for Eastern publication ,all highly flavored with a spirit of democracy for both sexes, for all were seeking, as men in the desert for water, for some solution of the question of women voting and having a hand in governmental affairs. It must be remembered that Mrs. Bright actively advocated suffrage, sustaining Mr. Bright in every way in his suffrage bill. She accompanied him to Cheyenne in October, 1868, for the session of the Legislature.
A personal letter some years ago from Mrs. Bright at her home in the East set forth the reasons why Mr. Bright endorsed and worked for women's suffrage. His devotion to this cause was primarily because of the fact that the negro had recently been emancipated, be believing if the black man could vote in his ignorance and illiteracy how much more intelligent and safe would be the ballot in the hands of women as capable as his mother, Susan B. Anthony, his wife, and Mrs. Morris. In this remote mining camp of South Pass City, hundreds of miles removed
—————
*Mrs. Morris had come to the territory directly from Peru, Illinois, in which state she had but recently listened to Susan B. Anthony's eloquent, forceful and convincing appeal for suffrage for women. Miss Anthony was making a tour of the West, her fire and enthusiasm being to arouse Mrs. Morris to a point of action on the question of "equal rights".

[9]

from a railroad, surrounded by the crafty redman, the
highway robber, and the howling wolves and crying coyotes,
these two congenial families discoursed and discussed the
limited rights of women in civil affairs, Mrs. Morris usually
being the brilliant leader of the conversation. The
inspiration derived from these fireplace conferences with
the master mind of Mrs. Morris gave Mr. Bright the final
courage to carry into action his convictions born of after-
war observations.
  Esther Morris has rightfully been called "The Mother
of Woman's Suffrage in Wyoming". A pioneer, a frontier
woman, a mother of three sons, all of whom have occupied
with credit to the mother and themselves positions of
importance and trust, Mrs. Morris had the breath of freedom, 
democracy and equality in her nostrils long before
she journeyed to an unknown and untried western frontier
When by stage she reached South Pass City, situated 
on the fringe of civilization, she made this breath in living
actuality, early beginning her campaign for true democracy.
Colonel Bright easily and quickly caught her spirit,
bringing to Cheyenne in October, 1869, his own ideas that
had now crystallized from his association with Mrs. Morris.
  Mrs. Morris had an original quite out of the common 
order of conversational speech. Her son once said 
that her abundant store of genuine wit carried her through
many a trying situation; she had courage to do what would
have been easier to avoid; she was dynamic, the dead level
of living had no attraction for her; she scorned the static
position adopted by the average woman; she lost no time
with polished rhetoric; she talked in plain Anglo-Saxon--
so easy of understanding. Heroic in size, masculine in
mind, Esther Morris possessed more than an ordinary 
[10]

love for flowers, for children, and for those who were less
fortunately situated than she was; her charities were unostentatious
but numerous. She was a born reformer, possessing
indomitable energy and a remarkable mental activity.
Not only was Mrs. Morris optimistic, but she was
always cheerful and happy, radiating her spirit of hope on
all with whom she came in contact. A pioneer in many
fields, in thought as well as in material things, she believed
in those things she advocated.
  Goldsmith in his comedy, "She Stoops to Conquer",
makes one of Mrs. Hardcastle's guests, in an outburst of
passion, exclaim, "His uncle a Colonel; we shall soon hear
of his mother being a Justice of the Peace." The act of
those in authority in the then recently established Territory
of Wyoming in the early days of the seventies made
Goldsmith belong to an obsolete age, for the first woman
to occupy a public office in the Territory of Wyoming was
Esther Morris, being appointed a Justice of the Peace by the
Commissioner of Sweetwater County on February 14,
1870, for South Pass City, which was at that time the
county seat of a county that was larger than an empire.
After Mrs. Morris' appointment, a commission was issued
to her by the Acting Governor of the Territory Edward 
M. Lee. At the time of taking her oath of office Mrs.
Morris was 57 years of age, and on the occasion of her
first court day Judge Morris wore a calico gown, a worsted
breakfast shawl, green ribbons in her hair and a green
neck tie. Mrs. Morris was the first woman in the world
to hold the position of Justice of the Peace. The first
case to come before her involved the question of jurisdiction.
Her predecessor refused to surrender to her the
docket and other papers belonging to his office. Mrs.
[11]

Morris had him arrested and brought into her court for trial, but realized that she had been in error in this, as she, the Judge of the Court claiming to be a successor of the former judge, was an interested party. Mrs. Morris dismissed the case and the public strongly endorsed the first official act of the first woman Justice of the Peace in the world. Her dignity, her calm judgment and her sense of justice, even though ruling against herself, won admiration for her that she retained through her term of office as Justice of the Peace of South Pass City.
"In her judicial capacity, though not an expert in abstruse questions of law, Judge Morris manifested a disposition to base all of her judgements on the broad principles of justice and right, without regard to technicalities or quibbles of law. To pettifoggers she showed no mercy, and though by no means popular, her decisions were regarded as just." So proclaimed a lawyer practicing in her court in 1870. Judge Morris decided 70 cases in her court, no one of which was reversed, when taken on appeal, to a higher court.
On the day Mrs. Morris was appointed to her judicial position, the following document had been placed on the files of the County Commissioners in their office at South Pass City:
"To the Honorable Board of County Commissioners for Sweetwater County.
"Sirs : In deference to the wisdom of our Honorable Legislators for our virgin territory and a very respectable minority of the people of the United States in favor of female suffrage, and not wishing to be found backward in so laudable a cause. I therefore make this my resignation of the office of Justice of the Peace for Sweetwater County, Wyoming Territory, to take effect whenever some lady elector shall have been duly appointed to fill the vacancy. 
"Done at my office in South Pass City this 14th day of February A. D. 1870, and the Independence of the United States the 94th.
"R.S. BARR, J. P."

[12]


From Atlantic City, a thriving gold-mining camp just east of South Pass City, J. W. Anthony, chairman of the County Commissioners, proclaimed to the world at large his daring and magnanimity in no uncertain words :

"Atlantic City, Wyoming Territory, February 14, 1970
"I had the honor to preside at the meeting of the County Commissioners of Sweetwater County today, when a petition and application were presented by Esther Morris, wife of John Morris, for the office of Justice of the Peace for said County. There being a vacancy, and she filing the proper bonds, and our Democratic legislature giving equal rights to women as to the franchise and holding office with men, the question was proper. One of the board, by name of Daniels, voted for it; John Swingle voted against it; and it was left to me as Chairman to decide. It put me to my trumps. The lady is every way qualified, and considering everything I voted for it, and ordered her to file her bonds and be sworn into office, and the clerk to telegraph to the world that Wyoming, the youngest and one of the richest Territories in the United States, gave equal rights to women in actions as well as words. The consequences we do not know, but hope and trust for the best. You can make this public or not, as you feel inclined. I don't think it will hurt us if the world knows it."

Under date of December 27, 1869, Mr. Robert C. Morris, son of Esther Morris, wrote:

"Mr. Bright returned to his home in this place a few days ago and Mrs. Morris and myself, as the only open advocates here of woman's suffrage, resolved ourselves into a committee and called on him to tender our congratulations and thanks for his services in our behalf as well as for all true lovers of Equal Rights. We found Mr. Bright in a comfortable log cabin with his good wife and little son, and he expressed himself pleased that there were some persons here (at South Pass City) who endorsed his views on Woman Suffrage. Mr. Bright is a strong man, rather tall, with a frank, open countenance which his name describes most fully. The name of Bright stands for right as well in America as in England.
"In regard to Woman Suffrage, Mr. Bright says, 'I have never thought much about it nor have I been convinced
[13]

by a woman's lecture or newspaper, for I never heard a woman speak from the rostrum. I knew it was a new issue, and a live one, and with a strong feeling that it was just, I determined to use all influence in my power to have the bill passed'."

I asked Mr. Morris if he had ever heard his mother make any statement that had influenced Mr. Bright to work for suffrage. Mr. Morris made this exact statement, "Oh, yes, indeed, my mother used to talk about it, and I remember plainly when Mr. Bright came to our house he said to my mother that he was going to introduce the Woman Suffrage bill for her."
Hon. H. G. Nickerson, who lived in Atlantic City in the declining years of the sixties and the youthful days of the seventies, has filed the following statements in regard to Mrs. Morris, Mr. Bright, and to woman suffrage:

"To Mrs. Esther Morris is due the credit and honor of advocating and originating woman's suffrage in the United States. At the first election held at South Pass (then in Carter County, Wyo.), on the 2nd day of September, 1869, Col. Wm. H. Bright, democrat, and myself, republican, were candidates for the first territorial legislature. A few days before election Mrs. Morris gave a tea party at her residence at which there were about forty ladies and gentlemen present. Colonel Bright and myself being invited for a purpose, for while sitting at the table Mrs. Morris arose and stated the object of the meeting. She said: 'There are present two opposing candidates for the first legislature and our new territory, one of which is sure to be elected, and we desire here and now to receive from them a public pledge that whichever one is elected will introduce and work for the passage of an act conferring upon the women of our new Territory the right of suffrage.'
"Of course, we both pledged ourselves as requested, and received the applause of all present. There were no Republicans elected at this first election; the legislature was solidly Democratic. Colonel Bright, true to his promise, introduced the bill and it became a law."

[14]


What of Mr. Ben Sheeks? Of all the men serving in the first Territorial Legislature in Wyoming in 1869, including the Governor, and other Territorial officers, members of the Legislature, clerks and pages, Mr. Sheeks is the only one now living. His home is in the State of Washington, an honored member of the Washington Bar, and at present he occupies with great distinction the position of "Judge of the Superior Court" of that State. When Mr. Sheeks was in the Wyoming Legislature he was a bachelor, an ambitious politician, educated and trained in the law and a born leader. While unsuccessful in his attempts to defeat suffrage in the first Legislature, Mr. Sheeks came to the second Legislature 1871 determined to accomplish what he had failed to do in 1869, his leadership and organization coming perilously near being successful. When in the first Legislature Mr. Sheeks is credited with saying, "Woman never knows what she wants and is never satisfied until she gets it."

Montesano, Washington, October 14, 1919.

Wise as I thought myself fifty years ago I am willing to admit that I have learned some things since.
I have advocated and voted for woman's suffrage, and have no doubt of the wisdom and justice of my later action, whatever the good women of Wyoming may think of my former conduct.
Yours truly, 
BEN SHEEKS

Mrs. Campbell, wife of former Governor John A. Campbell, on October 27, 1919, from Washington, D. C., where she and her daughter reside, sent the following communication to the author of this article:
"The spirit of justice to women and their intelligence influenced Governor Campbell to sign the bill. It was that

[15]

exactly and nothing else. * * * Governor Campbell carefully considered and weighed the importance of the measure and with a full conviction of its justice and possible good for all future time gave it his approval. It was the deed of an intensely upright and enlightened judgment. His veto message when the repeal was attempted states explicitly the principles by which he was guided and which positively refute any other reasons which those attacking the law have since brought forward.
"I am glad to say this to the women of Wyoming in their heyday of victory for the cause, a result which to me clearly vindicates Governor Campbell's action in the matter.
"So I clasp hands with you across the distance which separates us, and, joined by my daughter, thank you for the opportunity which has been given me for greetings and good wishes.
"Very sincerely,
"ISABELLA W. CAMPBELL."

Mrs. Morris retired from her judicial duties on the first day of November, 1870, her term of office having expired. The proposal for the appointment of Mrs. Morris as a Justice was made by Judge John W. Kingman of the district in which South Pass City was located. Judge Kingman also had advocated that women be allowed to serve as jurors. When Mrs. Morris surrendered the docket of her court to her successor, she made the following statement, "Circumstances have transpired to make my position as Justice of the Peace a test of woman's ability to hold public office, and I feel that my work has been satisfactory, although I have often regretted I was not better qualified to fill the position. Like all pioneers, I have labored in faith and hope."
Upon the death of Mrs. Morris, April 2, 1902, one of her sons published the following eulogy, presented here in part, upon his talented mother:
"She was a woman of wonderful vitality and will power. But her indomitable energy was not more remarkable than

[16]



her mental activity. She was a born reformer, a true descendant of her liberty loving ancestors who came over the ocean to gain their religious freedom.
"Mrs. Morris was optimistic. She was always cheerful and happy, looking on the bright side of life, and she seemed to thoroughly enjoy the newness of things. The freshness and freedom captivated her. Having a brave spirit, she never needed encouragement, but was always cheering up those around her and driving away the clouds above them. Her resourceful nature enabled her to get good out of evil and to keep the bright side uppermost. She never flattered people to put them in good humor. Her remedy was different. It might be a caustic instead of an anodyne. A few pertinent suggestions for removal of the cause, accompanied by some keen, witty comment, carried the remedy home to the complainant or sufferer.
"Her womanly traits were shown in her love of the beautiful. Our pioneer citizens will always remember her garden of flowers from which she was ever ready to pluck her choicest varieties for the passerby who stopped to admire the little oasis.
"Mrs. Morris was a true pioneer, in the domain of thought as well as in material things. She welcomed innovations, and anyone with a new idea; was well received at her home. Not that she did not hold to fundamental truth, for she had an abiding faith that all truth had not yet been revealed to mankind, and her soul longed for a new revelation. She believed that it surely would come some day. It was light, more light, that she craved. Her early faith she cherished as something precious as something precious, but her mature mind seemed to be on the alert for something more than this. We say this in explanation for one who was always frank, in fact at times more candid than diplomatic.
"Perhaps the most marked trait of character of the deceased was her fearless independence. It did not always make her friends, but in the end she won the respect of those who could not agree with her opinions.
"Her quest of truth in this world is ended. Her mission in life has been fulfilled. The work she did for the elevation of womankind will be told in the years to come, when its purpose will be better understood. But let us say here it was not the mere privilege of putting a piece of paper in the ballot-box that she was striving for. It was something more and something better than this. It has been

[17]

well said that all reforms are crude and bungling at the 
outset. They are little more than a protest against existing
conditions. Yet people then begin to think, and the world
broadens out and assumes a different phase."

The author has had the honor of being a personal friend
of Mrs. Esther Morris, for whom she had a great reverence
and admiration for her sterling character, for her
sympathy for womankind, for her breadth of learning, her
logical way of reasoning, and her work for true democracy.
Mrs. Morris not only lived in South Pass City, but
in Laramie, and also in Cheyenne, where it was her privilege
to know her.
In August, 1915, a special pilgrimage was made to old
South Pass City, now an almost deserted town of tumbled
down houses and rotten timbers. This city now, as in 
1869, is far removed from any railroad, but can easily be
reached by automobile. Going to the spot where had once 
stood Mrs. Morris' office of justice, which now is so
tumbled down the shape of the original construction can not
be easily traced, the writer stood on the ground on which 
the building had been erected and reverently bowed her
head, and silently thanked a Divine Power for endowing a
woman with the understanding of democracy and who had 
the courage to advocate woman's suffrage and who had the
ability to bring her dreams to a successful fruition.
Believing that a lasting monument on the historic spot
should be erected in memory of this enlightened pioneer
woman, on July 6, 1920, another little journey was made
to the home of the wise woman in the West.
On that date the exact site of the office and home of
Esther Morris was located, the place of the front door being
selected for the spot on which was to be placed a monument
[18]

At this "point of liberty", the gateway to the abiding 
place of the woman who daringly earned the title of
"the Mother of Woman Suffrage in Wyoming", a large
stone cairn was erected from stones gathered from the
foundations of the first church, the first schoolhouse, the 
first postoffice, the office and home of Mr. and Mrs. Bright,
the office of Judge Sheeks, the first jail and the foundation
of the home and office of Mrs. Morris. In September of
1920, Captain Nickerson carved with his skillful mallet
and chisel a stone tablet, which he placed on the substantial
cairn, bearing the inscribed words:
SITE OF OFFICE
AND HOME OF
ESTHER MORRIS,
FIRST WOMAN
JUSTICE OF THE PEACE,
AUTHOR 
OF FEMALE SUFFRAGE IN
WYOMING
GRACE RAYMOND HEBARD,
The University of Wyoming, Laramie, Wyoming.
November, 1920.
Reprinted in May 1940
by William Dean Embree
15 Broad St., New York


1941

WOMEN who have won fame by WORK, HEROISM, CHANCE OR CHARM

No. 222—Mrs. Esther Morris, "Mother of Woman Suffrage in Wyoming" and First Woman Justice of the Peace in the World 
(From "How Woman Suffrage Came to Wyoming" by Grace Raymond Hebard. University of Wyoming, Laramie, 1920: reprinted with the above portrait in 1940 by William Dean Embree, New York)

Bostonians recently saw a film inspired by the life of the extraordinary woman pictured today—Mrs. Esther Morris. Only those who have known of her otherwise, however, realize her quality and the significance of her contribution to the dignity and development of women.
She has an Olympian aspect in the picture reproduced today, but it scarcely does full justice to the warmth, the gay humor and the stern character of this first woman justice of the peace in our country or—it is alleged—in any other country in the world. It is exciting simply to realize that it was in the first year of the territorial status of Wyoming when not only hostile Indians but lawless gold-seekers, cattle-rustlers, riff-raff followers and pioneers were either settling in South Pass City or threatening it that she became justice of the peace, held the office for the regular term of one year and of the 70 decisions she made not one was reversed by a higher court. It is said that she declared to the legislator—William Bright—who introduced the suffrage bill in the Legislature:
"You get them to pass a law giving women the right to vote and I will close up some of the rough and tough joints we have here!"
Not only did he get the law passed, but also signed by the Governor, John A. Campbell, a convert through hearing women speak at a woman's suffrage convention in able and unanswerable speeches. Such was the enthusiasm for it that the commissioner of Sweetwater county forthwith appointed Mrs. Morris a justice of the peace. To complete the picture of the exciting series of events, think of this 57-year-old woman, the mother of three proud sons, taking

her oath of office and presiding at her first court day in a calico gown with a green necktie and green ribbons in her hair, and with a worsted breakfast shawl wrapped about her impressive person. Then think of her making her decisions upon the basis of fair play, of simple, direct justice, uninhibited by the twists and turns of legal precedent and undismayed by the attempts of rough thugs to disrupt her court. And be proud of this first woman justice of the peace.
Mrs. Morris was a descendant of people of Hingham, Mass., but she married her first husband in New York, and had apparently settled in Peru, Ill. The record is not wholly clear as to the death of her first husband, but when she went to South Pass City, Wyo., she was Mrs. Morris and mother of three sons. South Pass, the largest city in the territory, consisted of "rows of shacks stretching along a ledge of the Wind River Mountains." It was during the terrific reconstruction period after the Civil War, and many Southern soldiers were seeking their fortunes in the Northwest—as Wyoming then was. Among them was William Bright, a colonel, with his wife, a highly intelligent woman.
Mrs. Morris, great-hearted, brilliant walker, and energetic neighbor, was a frequent visitor at the Bright cabin, where they and others discussed the issues, pressing and challenging, left by the terrible war-years. She had heard Susan B. Anthony, fiery with her indignation at the betrayal of the women who had dropped their struggle for their own political rights to help the Abolitionists, only to find the suffrage denied them after the war.

Before the election in Wyoming, Mrs. Morris invited some 20 prominent men to dinner at her "shack" and there placed before them the case for woman suffrage, with such clarity and persuasive eloquence, that everyone of them who was a prospective candidate promised to introduce the support a bill for it, if he were elected. Colonel Bright was an ardent believer anyway, through his respect for his wife, his mother and Mrs. Morris, as well as because of the clear good sense of it. Such was the preliminary "lobbying" of Mrs. Morris.
Her personality was a powerful factor, in other ways. Vigorous, yet warm-hearted and generous, she was the best of neighbors in that primitive, rough and wild community. It is said that she took care of Mrs. Bright when her child was born, while her husband went to be sworn in as legislator. Her cooking and her delightful garden won her friends as well as did her wit and pungent force in discussion. Her leadership helped to justify the claims that women were wholly competent to vote and share in government.
A touching and splendid tribute to the effect of women's voting—the right was won 50 years before the final Federal Amendment was passed—is the attitude of Mr. Embree who reprinted the booklet cited above, that Mrs. Morris might be remembered, and sent it to 75 women's clubs and 27 public libraries in Wyoming. He recalled riding before his mother as a small boy when she went to vote, and had all his life respected the intelligent participation of his mother and sisters and other women in public affairs.

 Tomorrow's Picture—Mrs. Amelia Bloomer



(Press Bulletin, National Council of Women Voters.)
To the Editor: This news service is furnished free of charge by the Publicity Bureau of the National Council of Women Voters, 667 [Parking?] building, Tacoma, Wash. If any of all of it finds a place in your columns kindly send marked copy to this office. If the regular service is desired, a request to that effect with be appreciated. 
CORNELIA TEMPLETON HATCHER, 
Manager.

WYOMING'S NEW LAWS.

Progressive legislation—who said you could not get it in states where women vote? Here is a partial list of Wyoming's legislative accomplishments during the recent session. Please note that this was Wyoming's 11th legislature. Few of the older states could show a better record. One hundred and twenty-three acts were passed by both houses, and of these only a small number were vetoed by Gov. Carey. The following are of especial interest:
A measure providing for the submission to the people of a constitutional amendment providing for the initiative and referendum.
A measure providing for the adoption by the people at a special election n cities of 8,000 or over, of the commission form of government in lieu of the present political form.
A measure providing for the holding of primary elections for the nomination of all candidates for office, and prescribing rules to govern the management of political parties.
A corrupt practices act, limiting the candidate's campaign expenses and compelling a sworn statement of all expenses, during both the primary and the general election.
The headless ballot act, prescribing a form of ballot to be voted at all general elections, with no square or circle at the top and printed in three columns.
A measure creating the offices of state chemist and assistant state chemist, and revising and re-enacting the pure food laws so as to conform to the pure food laws of the United State.s
Prescribing a penalty of imprisonment for assault or assault and battery upon a female with the intent to commit the crime of rape.
A measure providing for the establishment of a state industrial school for juvenile offenders, its location and maintenance, and levying a tax for the same.
——————
WOMEN OFFICIALS IN COLORADO.

Colorado will have four women members in its next legislature. One of the commissioners of Denver county is a woman, and 13 women were chosen for important municipal offices in various Colorado cities and town in this spring's elections.
———————
YES, THEY WANT TO VOTE.

Two widows past 70 years of age received their naturalization papers in Seattle, Wash., the other day. if any one thinks that women do not care to vote, here is a part of the answer. Another woman, a daughter of of one of those mentioned was also made a citizen at the same time, and a fourth to receive her naturalization papers gave as one reason for desiring them, that she had a minor son, whom she wished to grow up an American citizen. All of these women had been in the United States a number of years, and were interested and informed upon public questions. There were 27 naturalization papers granted, in all, on that day. The judge who, by the way, was formerly an anti-suffragist, took occasion to remark: "The standard of citizenship in the applicants of today is much higher than in the ordinary group."
————————
WRITERS WISH BALLOT.

The South California Women's Press club recently took a straw ballot on woman's suffrage, and the result showed approval of ballots for women in the proportion of 34 to 4. 
————————
THE SUFFRAGE SITUATION.

The following summary of the woman's suffrage situation in the several states is sent out by the National Council of Women Voters, Tacoma, Wash.:
Woman suffrage bills were introduced in more than half the state legislatures the past season. In Pennsylvania such a measure was presented for the first time in 27 years. Several states passed the measure in one house.
In Massachusetts the suffrage bill was referred to the next legislature.
In Nevada a bill to submit a suffrage amendment passed, but it must wait two years and pass another legislature before it can be voted upon by the people.
Ohio is to have an constitutional convention, and a campaign is on to put woman suffrage in the new constitution.
In Oregon an amendment was submitted under the initiative, with a resolution of endorsement by the legislature. Election, fall of 1912.
In Kansas, which already has municipal woman suffrage, an amendment giving full suffrage was submitted by the legislature. Election, fall of 1912.

BOSTON

Nazis Force Turks to
Let War Goods Through

VICHY, May 21 (AP) -- German
military equipment already is crossing
Turkey en route to Iraq by rail
due to a Nazi squeeze play, diplomatic
sources here reported tonight. 

THREATEN TO CUT LINE

Reports from Istanbul said passenger
traffic to Syria and Iraq had been
stopped but did not mention freight
traffic.
Diplomatic circles here said the situation
was this:
Small German military units in Iraq
quickly established themselves along the
railroad to Turkey and threatened to
cut this line north of Bagdad unless
the Turks agreed to let German material
move through Turkey to Iraq.
Since this route to the Persian Gulf
is a principal source of imports for
Turkey now that the east Mediterranean
is a war zone, the Turks had 
to comply.

The British have been reported in 
Control of Basra, Iraq's Persian Gulf
port, and presumably could use the 
same means to keep the Turks from
bowing to German demands, but this
despatch made no mention of the possibility.

BIG FIGHT
ON DRAFT
IN ULSTER

Political Crisis Seen--
Nationalists Ask
De Valera Aid

BY GEORGE KELLEY

BELFAST, May 21 (UP)--A political
crisis in Northern Ireland
threatened tonight as Ulster Nationalists,
representing about one-third
of the population, sought support
from Eamon De Valera in opposition
to any conscription of Ulsterites for
the British army.

EMERGENCY SESSION

The Ulster Cabinet met in a two-hour
emergency session and was reliably
reports to have approved the
conscription plan revealed yesterday
in hints by British Prime Minister
Winston Churchill.
Apparently anticipating strong opposition,
Prime Minister John Miller Andrews
summoned an emergency meeting 
of the Ulster Union Council for
Friday when he is expected to appeal
for support of his Unionist followers
before leaving for London Saturday to
confer with Churchill.
Many of Andrews' own Unionist followers
are said to be hostile toward
the proposed introduction of British
conscription in Northern Ireland, replacing
a volunteer plan of military
service which has been in effect since
the outbreak of the war.

U. S. PRISONERS
MUST NOT TALK

Nazis to Make Sure They
Tell No Secrets

BERLIN, May 21 (AP)--Hopes of
speedy release for at least part of the 
140 Americans from the Egyptian
steamer Zamzam, sunk by a German
raider en route from New York to Alexandria,
were obscured tonight by
tangled questions of international law.
The Germans have stated unequivocally
that all of the Americans aboard
the Zamzam, which for a time was
feared lost with all 322 passengers and
crew, were brought through the British
blackade and safely at St. Jean De
Luz, France, and early today a German
spokesman forecast their speedy
release for return to the United States
through neutral countries.
But later, authorized sources said
German military authorities first would
make sure 24 American ambulance drivers
who were en route to Africa aboard
the Zamzam would be in no position to
reveal military secrets to the British.

CANADIANS REACH BRITAIN

LONDON, May 21 (AP)--A new group 
of Royal Canadian air force fliers--all

sergeant pilots--reached Britain safely,
it was announced today.

CANADIANS ARE 
HELD PRISONER

Mystery in French Action
in West Africa

OTTAWA, May 21 (AP)--The former
Great Lakes freighter Portadoc, a
Canadian ship under charter to England,
was sunk by "enemy action"
April 4 and nine of her crew were
taken as prisoners to French Guinea
on the West African coast, the Canadian
transport department announced
late today.
"Apparently seven others have been
able to return to Scotland," the department
reported. No other details
were supplied.
Officials of the department of external
affairs said they could not explain
the reference to the seamen as "prisoners,"
since Canada and France still
maintain diplomatic relations.

PARIS TO BE KEPT OUT
OF HANDS OF FRENCH

VICHY, May 21 (AP)--The possibility
of the restoration of Paris as the
French government's full capital apparently
was ended today by a German
order for all foreign embassies and
legations in Paris to withdraw their
representatives by June 10.
The United States and other members
of the foreign diplomatic corps here received
word from their embassies and
legations in Berlin they would have to 
get their representatives out of Paris
by June 10.

BRITISH LAND ANZAC
FORCE AT CYPRUS

NEW YORK, May 21 (AP)--The British
radio in a German-language broadcast
reported tonight the British garrison on
the Island of Cyprus has recently been
reinforced by a strong force of Australians
and New Zealanders "and
through the landing of new war materials."
Cyprus is in the extreme eastern
Mediterranean about 350 miles from
Crete.

SEES NAZI-ITALIAN
AIR SERVICE

WASHINGTON, May 21 (UP)--Oswald
Ryan of the U. S. Civil Aeronautics
Board said tonight the vast
German-Italian commercial aviation
network in South America must be
eliminated because it is in reality a
winged Trojan horse which is "dangerous
to our national life."
"The aviation of all the Americans
must be made truly and safely American,"
he said in a nationwide broadcast
which presumably had the administration's
sanction.

Flandin Quits France,
Arrives in Algiers

TANGIERS, May 21 (AP)--Pierre-
Etienne Flandin, former premier of
France, and Vichy's foreign minister before
Admiral Jean Darlan, was reported
today to have arrived in Algiers from
Marseille with his wife and daughter.

DUCE CALLS CABINET
TOGETHER FOR JUNE 7

ROME, May 21 (AP)--Premier Mussolini
tonight called a cabinet meeting for 
June 7.
(Such a meeting thus would come
three days before the anniversary
of Italy's entrance into the war.)

Whatever

DE GAULLE IN
BID TO TAKE
OVER SYRIA

"Free French" Forces
Invade--Joined by
Defending Army

NEW YORK, May 21 (UP)--The
Brazzaville radio reported late today
forces of "Free French" troops have
invaded French Syria and a regiment
of General Henri Dentz's Syrian
forces was believed to have gone over
to the Free French.

"STILL UNSETTLED"

The broadcast of the "Free French"
radio at Brazzaville on the French
Equatorial African coast, heard in
New York, said few details of the invasion
of Syria (presumably from
Palestine) were available.

"But we have reason to believe," the
Free French radio said, "that a French
regiment has already joined our troops.
This regiment is commanded by a
colonel who won much fame during
the famous Greek campaign in 1917.
"The situation is still unsettled."

The Brazzaville broadcast said the
main body of General Dentz' Syrian
troops had been instructed to fall back
toward Lebanon.

The regiment which went over to the
Free French was said to have been
one assigned to rear guard action.

BRITISH SUCCESSES

Steady Progress Made in Campaigns
in Iraq, Syria, North Africa and
Ethiopia--Consolidate Positions
Near Bagdad--Italian Prisoners
Total 19,000

CAIRO, May 21 (AP)--Air and land
successes against the German, Italian
and Iraq foes were reported by the
British middle east command today on
the far-flung battlefronts of Iraq, Syria,
North Africa and Ethiopia.
In Iraq, where the action continues
to be largely aerial, the British gave 
this picture of the situation:
British positions were consolidated
around Fallujah, Euphrates River town
just west of Bagdad, which air-borne
British troops have seized. German air
attackers were driven off by Royal Air
Force patrols. Numbers of Iraqis were
taken prisoners.
The Royal Air Force inflicted "considerable
damage" on hangars and 
other buildings of the Iraqis' Raschid 
airdrome near Bagdad.
Two Junkers troop-carrying planes
were hit in continuing Royal Air Force
raids on Damascus and Palmyra airports
in French-mandated Syria, which
the Germans are continuing to use
to ferry men and planes into Iraq.
The North African war continued to
be one of attrition. The Royal Air 
Force ranged wide over the western
desert, reporting destruction of a 
Junkers troop-carrier and a Messerschmitt
fighter at Mekill and the machine-gunning
of German-Italian trucks
in the Gazala and Tobruk areas, all in
Libya.
The Ethiopian cleanup drew inexorably
nearer, a British communique
announcing that the Duke of Aosta and
his staff had surrendered formally at
Amba Alaji and that captives taken
there now totalled between 18,000 and
19,000.

GIVES $10,000,
SAYS NOTHING

"A Friend" Leaves Note
and Cash, Walks Out

PROVIDENCE, May 21--An elderly
man walked into Catholic charity fund
appeal headquarters today and stood,
hat in one hand and an envelope in 
the other, before the Rev. Thomas J.
McKitchen.
Sorting checks for the appeal now
going on, Father McKitchen looked
up, asked what he could do.
The man put the envelope on the
desk and walked out.
In the envelope was $10,000 in crisp
bills, seven $1000 bills, two $500 bills,
and 20 $100 bills. There was also a 
note.
"The most Rev. Bishop Keugh:
"My dear bishop, pleas accept this
donation as a help to the charity [?]
"Sincerely [?]

[next page]
ment of a state industrial school for 
juvenile offenders, its location and maintenance, 
and levying a tax for the same.

WOMEN OFFICIALS IN COLORADO.
Colorado will have four women members
in its next legislature. One of the
commissioners of Denver county is a
woman, and 13 women were chosen for
important municipal offices in various
Colorado cities and town in this spring's
elections.

YES, THEY WANT TO VOTE.
Two widows past 70 years of age received
their naturalization papers in
Seattle, Wash., the other day. If any
one thinks that women do not care to 
vote, here is a part of the answer. Another
woman, a daughter of of one of
those mentioned, was also made a citizen
at the same time, and a fourth to
receive her naturalization papers gave
as one reason for desiring them, that
she had a minor son, whom she wished
to grow up an American citizen. All of
these women had been in the United
States a number of years, and were interested
and informed upon public questions.
There were 27 naturalization
papers granted, in all, on that day. The
judge who, by the way, was formerly
an anti-suffragist, took occasion to remark:
"The standard of citizenship in
the applicants of today is much higher
than in the ordinary group."

WRITERS WISH BALLOT.
The South California Women's Press
club recently took a straw ballot on
woman's suffrage, and the result 
showed approval of ballots for women
in the proportion of 34 to 4.

THE SUFFRAGE SITUATION.
The following summary of the woman's 
suffrage situation in the several
states is sent out by the National Council
of Women Voters, Tacoma, Wash.:
Woman suffrage bills were introduced
in more than half the state legislatures
the past season. In Pennsylvania
such a measure was presented for
the first time in 27 years. Several
states passed the measure in one house.
In Massachusetts the suffrage bill
was referred to the next legislature.
In Nevada a bill to submit a suffrage
amendment passed, but is must
wait two years and pass another legislature
before it can be voted upon by
the people.
Ohio is to have an constitutional convention,
and a campaign is on to put
woman suffrage in the new constitution.
In Oregon an amendment was submitted
under the initiative, with a resolution
of endorsement by the legislature.
Election, fall of 1912.
In Kansas, which already has municipal
woman suffrage, an amendment
giving full suffrage was submitted by
the legislature.  Election, fall of 1912.
In California, the amendment was
submitted by the legislature. Election
October 10, 1911.
In Wisconsin, the amendment was
submitted by the legislature.  Election,
fall of 1912.

WELL BEGUN.
Tacoma, Wash. - This city has made
an excellent beginning of the task
which she set for herself when the Committee
of 15 started recall petitions
against the mayor and the commissioners.
Perhaps some think that the work
is complete.  The former mayor has
been replaced by a man of whom the
city expects a clean and forceful administration.
Two of the commissioners
have been replaced by men who are
believed to be better fitted for their
tasks than those recalled, and two - the
best two - of the old commission were
retained.  Both friends and foes of the
new administration are free to say that
without the women's votes the change
could not have been made.  The quiet,
capable way in which the new mayor 
and commissioners have begun their
work promises all that the best citizens
desire.

It still remains for the citizens to
stand by the officials whom they have
selected, to encourage them in their battle
against all that is evil and wasteful
and for all that is efficient and
good in the administration of the city's
affairs.  And in this task, perhaps more
trying and certainly of longer duration
than the mere casting of ballots, no
one doubts that the women citizens of
Tacoma will do their loyal best to complete
the good work they have begun.
There is commendable disposition to
forebear all criticism of the faults that
have been, and to turn all attention to
constructive - efforts for the city's good.

WOULD ABOLISH MANY INJUSTICES.
"If women had the privilege of voicing
their opinions at the ballot box,
many of the injustices now practiced
upon women and child laborers would
be abolished," says a part of the resolution
endorsing the woman suffrage
movement, passed by the conference of
women and child labor, which met in
Atlanta, Ga., in April.

[*Duplicate*]

Freeman Clarke.
Vassar girls dressed 300 dolls for distribution
at Christmas by the College Settlement 
in Rivington Street, New York.
MRS. CASSIE SCOTT CUSHING, a graduate
of the Northwestern University at Evanston,
Ill., has offered a prize of one hundred
dollars, which is open to students in the
department of political economy, and will
[be] awarded annually to the writer of the
best dissertation on "Municipal Government."
The subject for this year will be
"City Government for Chicago."
The Maine Woman Suffrage Association
did a good thing when it sent to the tax-collectors
of all the towns in the State to
find the amount of taxes paid by women,
The Maine Legislature will hear from it
this winter.  Wm. I. Bowditch did the
same service for Massachusetts twenty
years ago.. He found that millions of
dollars were paid in taxes by women.
One woman paid as much as six hundred
men in her town.  These men could all
vote as to how her tax money should be
used, and how much the tax should be,
but the woman herself had no vote about
either question.
The American Humane Education
Society offers $200, $150, $100 and $50 as 
prizes for the best essays on the importance
of humane education in all the 
higher institutions of learning; also
three other prizes of $100, $60 and $40
for the best practical plans of promoting 
increased humane education in our higher


[*000406*]


THE WOMAN'S CLUB
OF CHEYENNE
CHEYENNE, WYO

February 18,1939
Mrs Carrie Chapman Catt
120 Paine Avenue
New Rochelle, New York.

My dear Mrs Catt:
The Woman's Club
of Cheyenne has intrusted me to
write you of their approval of a
request to the Smithsonian Institute,
that two congratulatory cards to
the Women of Wyoming, now an
exhibit there, be sent to the
Wyoming Historical Department,
Supreme Court Building, Cheyenne,
Wyoming.
It appears from all records
given to us, that these cards
rightfully belong to Wyoming.
We will appreciate your
influence in having this
brought about.
Very truly yours,
Jennie G Seitz
Corresponding secretary
(Mrs Ira J. Seitz)

Transcribed and reviewed by contributors participating in the By The People project at crowd.loc.gov.