CHAPTER II.
ARIZONA.[1]
Since this chapter is to commence with the year 1900, this will be where Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt and Miss Mary Garrett Hay, chairman and member of the Organization Committee of the National American Woman Suffrage Association left off in the spring of 1899 after they had spent a month laboring with the Territorial Legislature. They succeeded in getting a bill through the Lower House by a vote of two to one but by the deciding vote of Morris Goldwater of Prescott, president of the Council or Upper House, it was sent to a committee and prevented from coming to a vote. The hand of the "boss" of the saloonkeepers was clearly recognized in the game that was played.
Undaunted Mrs. Catt and Miss Hay came back in 1900 and organized the first full-fledged suffrage association in the Territory, with Mrs. Pauline O'Neill, wife of that staunch suffrage friend, the gallant Rough Rider, William O'Neill, as its president; Mrs. Lida P. Robinson, corresponding secretary; Mrs. Frances W. Munds, recording secretary, Mrs. Porter of Phoenix, treasurer. All were inexperienced and the society did not flourish and although 1900 was election year no pre-election pledges were obtained. A Territorial Legislature can extend suffrage to women without referring the question to the voters. A bill for this purpose was introduced in 1901 through a committee of women headed by Mrs. Robinson but it received little support and after creating the usual amount of excitement failed to pass either House.
During the following year suffrage work seemed to lapse and the organization would have died a natural death but for the will of Mrs. Robinson, who called a convention to meet in Phoenix
- ↑ The History is indebted for this chapter to Mrs. Frances W. Munds, president of the State Woman Suffrage Association until women were enfranchised and then elected State Senator.
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