Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 3.djvu/765

CHAPTER L.

KANSAS.

Effect of the Popular Vote on Woman Suffrage—Anna C. Wait—Hannah Wilson—Miss Kate Stephens, Professor of Greek in State University—Lincoln Centre Society, 1879—The Press—The Lincoln Beacon—Election, 1880—Sarah A. Brown, Democratic Candidate—Fourth of July Celebration—Women Voting on the School Question—State Society, 1884—Helen M. Cougar—Clara Bewick Colby—Bertha H. Ellsworth—Radical Reform Association—Mrs. A. G. Lord—Prudence Crandall—Clarina Howard Nichols—Laws—Women in the Professions—Schools—Political Parties—Petitions to the Legislature—Col. F. G. Adams' Letter.

We closed the chapter on Kansas in Vol. II. with the submission and defeat of the woman suffrage amendment, leaving the advocates of the measure so depressed with the result that several years elapsed before any further attempts were made to reorganize their forces for the agitation of the question. This has been the experience of the friends in every State where the proposition has been submitted to a vote of the electors—alike in Michigan, Colorado, Nebraska and Oregon—offering so many arguments in favor of the enfranchisement of woman by a simple act of the legislature, where the real power of the people is primarily represented. We have so many instances on record of the exercise of this power by the legislatures of the several States in the regulation of the suffrage, that there can be no doubt that the sole responsibility in securing this right to the women of a State rests with the legislature, or with congress in passing a sixteenth amendment that should override all State action in protecting the rights of United States citizens.

We are indebted to Anna C. Wait for most of the interesting facts of this chapter. She writes:

I watched with intense interest from my home in Ohio, the progress of the woman suffrage idea in Kansas in the campaign of 1867, and although temporary defeat was the result, yet the moral grandeur displayed by the people in seeking to make their constitution an embodiment of the principle of American liberty, decided me to become a citizen of that young and beautiful State. Gov. Harvey's massage was at that time attracting much attention and varied comments by the press. For the benefit of those