Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 3.djvu/566

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Voting in Sturgis.
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talent of all our western exchanges. Its editor, Mr. Wait, is 2 prominent leader in the State, a member of the legislature, and a believer in the equal civil and political rights of women. We have more than once suggested in the Revolution that the women should appear at the polls on election days and demand their rights as citizens. The effect could not but be beneficial wherever tried. Any considerable number of intelligent women in almost any locality would in this way soon inaugurate a movement to result in a speedy triumph. Let these noble Sturgis women persevere. Methodist Bishop Simpson was right when he declared the vote of woman at the polls would soon extinguish the perdition fires of intemperance. The Sturgis women have begun the good work, a hundred and fourteen to six! Surely, blessed are the husbands and children of such wives and mothers. P. P.

In The Revolution of September 3, 1868, we find the following from the Sturgis Star:

Last spring the ladies of Sturgis went to the polls one hundred and twenty in number, and demonstrated the propriety of the movement. Their votes did not count, for they could only be cast in a separate box, and the movement was only good in its moral effect. But at the school meeting the ladies have an equal right to vote with the men. Whatever qualifications a man must possess to exercise privileges in that meeting, any woman possessing like qualifications can exercise like privileges there. To substantiate this, it is only necessary to read the school law. Section 145 of the Primary School law: "The words 'qualified voter' shall be taken and construed to mean and include all taxable persons residing in the district of the age of twenty-one years, and who have resided therein three months next preceding the time of voting."

Ex-State Superintendent John M. Gregory's opinion of that is, that "under this section (145) all persons liable to be taxed in the district, and twenty-one years of age, and having resided three months in the district, without distinction of sex, color, or nationality, may vote in the district meetings." In districts where they elect only a director, assessor and moderator, the women can vote on all questions except the election of officers. In graded districts they can vote on all questions, election of trustees included. Men having no taxable property, but who vote at town meetings and general elections, can only vote for trustees at a school meeting. Any woman, then, having a watch, cow, buggy, or personal property of any kind, subject to tax, or who has real estate in her own name, or jointly with her husband, can vote. Here, then, is a lawful right for women to vote at school meetings, and as there can be no impropriety in it, we advocate it. We believe that it will work good. Our Union school is something that all should feel an active interest in. We hope, then, that those ladies entitled to vote will exercise the rights that the law grants them. To give these suggestions a practical effect, we cheerfully publish the following notice:

The undersigned respectfully request those ladies residing in District No. 3, of the township of Sturgis, who are entitled to vote at the annual meeting, to assemble in Mrs. Pendleton's parlor, at the Exchange Hotel, on Friday evening next, August 28, at 7:30 o'clock, to consider the matter of exercising the privilege which the law gives them.

This call is signed by about twenty of the best women of the borough. Last week we called attention in The Revolution to the earnestness of the English women in urging their claim to the right of suffrage, and appealed to American women from their example. We hear from different sources that American women will attempt, to some extent, to be registered this year as voters, and we hope so brave an example will become a contagion. A boastful warrior once demanded of his foe, "Deliver up your arms." The answer was, "Come, if you dare, and take them!" Let women become brave enough to take their rights, and there will not be much resistance. According to their faith and their courage, so shall it be.

P. P.

The Michigan State Suffrage Society—always an independent association—was organized at the close of the first convention held in Ham-