A very considerable sentiment in favor of woman suffrage exists throughout the State and many well-known individuals advocate it, among them U. S. Senator Albert J. Beveridge and most of the Congressional delegation, State officials, judges, clergymen and prominent members of the women's clubs, but there is so slight an organization that little opportunity is afforded for public expression or action.
From 1884 down to the present women have appeared many times in person and by petition before county and State conventions of the different political parties, asking for a recognition in their platforms of the right of women to the suffrage. Although these efforts have met with no response from the Democratic party, and none from the Republican in State meetings, a few county conventions have adopted planks to this effect. In 1889 the Greenback and the United Labor State Conventions unequivocally indorsed the franchise for women. In 1892 the Populist and the Prohibition State platforms contained declarations for woman suffrage. In 1894 the Populists again adopted the plank. Similar action was taken by the Social Democratic Party in 1900. Among those appearing before these bodies are found the names of Mrs. Sewall, Mrs. Gougar, Mrs. Haggart, Mrs. Pauline T. Merritt, Miss Flora Hardin, Mrs. Florence M. Adkinson, Mrs. Augusta Cooper Bristol and Mrs. Harper.
During the past sixteen years a number of women have sat as delegates in the State conventions of the Greenback, Prohibition, Populist, Socialist and Labor parties. Women have shown great interest in politics for many years, crowding the galleries at the State conventions and forming at least one-half of the audiences at the campaign rallies. Among those who have canvassed the State in national campaigns are the noted orators, Miss Anna E. Dickinson, and Mrs. Nellie Holbrook Blinn of California, for the Republican party; Mrs. Mary E. Lease and Mrs. Annie L. Diggs, both of Kansas, for the Populist; Miss Cynthia Cleveland for the Democratic, and Mrs. Helen M. Gougar for the Republican, Prohibition and Populist.
Legislative Action and Laws: It is most difficult to look up the history of legislation on any subject in Indiana. The original bills are not printed but are presented in writing, stowed
