Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 4.djvu/857

J. W. Odom offered, among other measures from the "California Alliance" of De Soto County, a proposition that the right of suffrage be conferred upon women on "certain conditions" not specified. John P. Robinson and D. J. Johnson also submitted sections providing for "female suffrage under certain conditions." Jordan L. Morris offered the following:

The Legislature shall have power to confer the elective franchise on all women who are citizens of the State and of the United States, 21 years of age and upwards, who own, in their own right, over and above all incumbrances, property listed for taxation of the value of $500 or upwards, or who, being widows, own jointly with their own or their husband's children, property of said value listed for taxation; or who are capable of teaching a first-grade public school in this State, as prescribed by law, and who never have been convicted, and shall not thereafter be convicted of any crime or misdemeanor and not pardoned therefor, to such extent and under such restrictions and limitations as it may deem proper to prescribe.

All of these noble efforts resulted in no action whatever to enfranchise women.

Suffrage: Since 1880 a woman as a freeholder, or leaseholder, may vote at a county election, or sign a petition for such an election to be held, to decide as to the adoption or non-adoption of a law permitting stock to run at large. She may also, if a widow and, as such, the head of the family, manifest by ballot her consent or dissent to leasing certain portions of land in the township, known as the "sixteenth sections," which are set apart for school purposes. As a patron of a school, which presupposes her widowhood, she may vote at an election of school trustees, other than in a "separate school district," which practically limits this privilege to women in the country.^[1]

As a taxpayer a woman can petition against the issuance of bonds by the municipality in which she resides (except where the proposed issuance is governed and regulated by a charter adopted previous to the code of 1892), but if a special election is ordered she can not vote for or against issuing the bonds.

The Legislature in dealing with the liquor traffic may make

1. Any municipality of 300 or more inhabitants may be declared a "separate school district" by an ordinance of the mayor or board of aldermen if it maintain a free public school at least seven months in each year. Four months is the ordinary public term, the additional three months' school being supported by special taxation. Thus as soon as a woman has to pay a special tax she is deprived of a vote.