J. Jacobs and Mrs. Elizabeth Lyle Saxon, he was granted a hearing before the Suffrage Committee of the convention.
The question of incorporating woman suffrage in the new State constitution was debated at intervals from Aug. 9 to 15, 1880. The fight for the measure was led by Edward Eldridge and W. S. Bush. In a long and able argument Mr. Eldridge reviewed the recent decision of the Supreme Court and made an eloquent plea for justice to women. Substitutes granting to women Municipal Suffrage, School Suffrage, the right to hold office, the privilege of voting on the constitution, all were defeated. Finally a compromise was forced by which it was agreed to submit a separate amendment giving them Full Suffrage, to be voted on at the same time as the rest of the. constitution, women themselves not being allowed to vote upon it.[1]
Only two-and-a-half months remained before election, the women were practically unorganized, there were few speakers, no money, and the towns were widely scattered. Miss Matilda Hindman of Pennsylvania and Mrs. Clara Bewick Colby of Washington, D. C., editor of the Woman's Tribune, came on and canvassed the State. Both were effective speakers and they received as much local assistance as possible, but all the money and influence which could be commanded by the disreputable element that had suffered from the woman's vote were brought to bear against the amendment, and its defeat was inevitable.
The constitution was adopted Nov. 5, 1889, the woman suffrage amendment receiving 16,521 ayes, 35,913 noes; an adverse majority of 19,392.
In 1890 the first State Legislature conferred School Suffrage on women to the extent of voting for trustees and directors.
The political campaign of 1896 was one in which reform of all kinds was unusually in evidence. Three women sat as delegates in the State Fusion Convention at Ellensburg. Mrs. Laura E. Peters, president of the suffrage club at Port Angeles, was a Populist delegate and was chosen a member of the Platform Committee. Through her efforts a suffrage plank was inserted in the platform of that branch of the convention.
The president of the State Suffrage Association, Mrs. Homer
- ↑ For addresses and other proceedings see the Woman's Tribune, Oct. 5, 1889, and the following numbers.
