21 years, who have resided in this State one year, etc." By his motion the ladies appeared before the convention in Committee of the Whole. They selected Miss Clay as their spokesman and sat in front of the speaker's stand during her address.
The only clause finally obtained in the new constitution was one permitting the General Assembly to extend School Suffrage to women; but the Legislature of 1892 made important concessions.
Among the members of the General Assembly of 1894 especial gratitude is due to Judges S. B. Vance and W. H. Beckner. The former introduced the Bill for Married Women's Property Rights in the House, giving Senator Lindsay credit for being practically its author. Judge Beckner cordially supported this bill, saying he preferred it to one of his own, which he had introduced but would push only if it should be evident that Judge Vance's more liberal bill could not become law. To the leadership of these two is due the vote of 79 ayes to 14 noes with which the bill passed the House. In the Senate it came near to defeat, but was carried through by the strenuous efforts of its friends, especially of Senators W. W. Stephenson, Rozel Weissinger and William Goebel. Senator Weissinger withdrew in favor of the House bill one of his own, not so comprehensive. The bill passed on the very last day of the session possible to finish business. The Senate vote was 21 yeas, 10 nays.[1] It was signed March 15 by Gov. John Young Brown, who always had favored it.
Another signal victory this year was School Suffrage for women of the second-class cities. Since 1838 widows with children of school age had been voters for school trustees in the country districts, and in 1888 this right was extended to allow taxpaying widows and spinsters to vote on school taxes. This general law, however, did not apply to chartered cities. The vigi-
- ↑ On the night of March 8 Mrs. Josephine K. Henry spoke in Frankfort on the subject of American Citizenship. The Legislative Hall was voted unanimously and the Senate, which was holding night sessions, adjourned to hear her address. The Property Rights Bill was on this night virtually dead. Mrs. Henry in her speech never alluded to this bill, but plainly asked the Legislature to create a power to which ahe could apply and receive her papers of citizenship, claiming that she had every qualification save that of sex. The speech did not procure for her the right to vote, but the next morning, amid the greatest tumult, the dead Property Rights Bill was resurrected and passed. Minutes of Kentucky E. R. A., 1894.
