CHAPTER XXV.
MONTANA.[1]
Before 1900 the National American Woman Suffrage Association, under the presidency of Miss Susan B. Anthony, helped to organize suffrage societies in Montana and several conventions were held. In 1899 Dr. Maria M. Dean was elected president. She was succeeded by Mrs. Clara B. Tower, whose report to the national suffrage convention of 1903 said:
On May 1, 1902, Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, National president, Miss Gail Laughlin and Miss Laura A. Gregg, organizers, arrived in Helena and in conjunction with the State officers planned a campaign to include a meeting in every town of any importance. Mrs. Catt re-organized the Helena Suffrage Club and remained two weeks, conducting a large correspondence, addressing all the women's organizations in the city and a mass meeting. Miss Laughlin spent these two weeks in Butte, where she spoke to a number of labor unions and obtained resolutions strongly endorsing woman suffrage from the Silver Bow Trades and Labor Assembly, a delegate body representing 10,000 men. Mrs. Catt then went to Butte and for ten days she and Miss Laughlin delivered addresses before the principal organizations of the city, among which were the Woman's Club and the Trades Council. Their visit closed with a mass meeting at which a large number of names were secured for membership in the Equal Suffrage Club, which was organized immediately afterward. The campaign was then placed in charge of Miss Laughlin, who did the field work, and Miss Gregg, who arranged the dates from the headquarters in Helena. The speaking before labor unions was continued through the State and not a union or delegate body of laboring men failed to endorse woman suffrage. Miss Laughlin, by invitation, addressed the State labor convention, representing all the labor unions, and resolutions strongly endorsing woman suffrage and the submission of an amendment were passed with only one dissenting voice on a roll-call vote.
Miss Laughlin spent the summer and fall visiting every town of importance, organizing more than thirty clubs and securing committees to circulate petitions where organization was impracticable.
- ↑ The History is indebted for this chapter to Mrs. Lucile Dyas Topping, formerly Lewis and Clark county superintendent of schools and prominent in the work of the campaign of 1914, when Montana women obtained the suffrage.
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