The friends were much elated at its passage over this protest and sent at once for Mrs. Johns to come to Topeka and work for its success in the Senate. She made every possible effort but in vain, the Republicans basing their refusal on its unconstitutionality. There was every reason to believe the Supreme Court would have upheld the statute.
In 1893 an amendment to the constitution was submitted to the electors by votes of both Republican and Populist members of the Legislature and was defeated in 1894, as has been related.
In 1897 two bills were introduced, one providing for a Bond Suffrage which is not included in the Municipal; the other to enable women to vote for Presidential electors. They were not reported from committee.
In 1899 a bill providing that there should be women physicians in penal institutions containing women and at least one woman on the State Board of Charities was favorably reported by the House committee, but did not reach a vote.
This year an act was secured creating the Traveling Libraries Commission. The work for this was initiated and principally carried forward by Mrs. Lucy B. Johnston, who enlisted the women of the Social Science Federation in 1897. The federated club women had conducted the enterprise three years and now turned over to the State forty libraries of about 5,000 volumes. In 1901 the appropriation was raised from $2,000 to $8,000.
On Jan. 14, 1901, a bill prepared by Auditor Carlisle of Wyandotte county was introduced by its Representative J. A. Butler (Dem.) of Kansas City, to repeal the law giving Municipal Suffrage to women. It was received with jeers and shouts of laughter and referred to the Judiciary Committee, which, on the 17th, reported it with the recommendation that it be not passed. On January 18 he re-introduced the same measure under another title. This time protests were sent in from all parts of the State. Mrs. Diggs went to Mr. Butler's home and secured a large number of these from his own constituents. A hearing was given by the Judiciary Committee to a delegation of prominent women and the bill was never reported.
Democrat—J. O. Milner, G. M. Hoover, T. C. Craig, F. M. Gable.
Populist—Robt. B. Leedy, J. L. Andrews, Wellington Doty, B. F. Morris, Levi Dumbauld, C. W. Dickson, Geo. E. Smith of Neosho.
