In 1899 Mrs. Duniway was invited by the Legislature to take part in the joint proceedings of the two Houses in honor of forty years of Statehood.
This year, in preparation for the election at which the woman suffrage amendment submitted by the Legislature of 1899 was to be voted on, 106 parlor meetings were held, 30,000 pieces of literature distributed, and the names and addresses of 30,000 voters in fourteen counties collected. Mrs. Duniway spoke by special invitation to a number of the various orders and fraternities of men throughout the State, most of whom indorsed the amendment. The usual headquarters were maintained during the Fair, under the management of Dr. Jeffreys.
LEGISLATIVE ACTION: The Legislature, having changed its time of meeting from September in the even years to January in the odd ones, convened in 1895. Through the efforts of its leading members, a bill passed both Houses in February to submit again a woman suffrage amendment to the voters. The resolution proposing it was carried without debate in the House by 41 ayes—including that of Speaker Moore—11 noes. In the Senate the vote was 17 ayes, n noes. As Mrs. Abigail Scott Duniway was lecturing in Idaho, the State suffrage association was represented at this Legislature by its vice-president-at-large, Dr. Annice F. Jeffreys.
The meeting of the Legislature of 1897 found the women ready and waiting for the necessary ratification of the amendment; but the Solons of the non-emotional sex fell to quarreling among themselves over the United States senatorial plum and, being unable to agree on a choice of candidates, refused to organize for any kind of business, so another biennial period of public inactivity was enforced upon the suffragists.
The Legislature convened in January, 1899, and with it came the long-delayed opportunity. Mrs. Duniway and Dr. Jeffreys had charge of the Suffrage Amendment Bill. They were recognized by prominent members, and admitted by vote to the privileges of the floor in each House. Senator C. W. Fulton, who had distinguished himself as the champion of the amendment in 1880 and 1882, was requested by them to carry their banner to victory once more. He assured them that personally he was
