The History of Woman Suffrage Volume III Part 85

ANNA d.i.c.kINSON: I certainly do not intend to fight Mr.

Collier. I believe I have the name of not being a belligerent woman. Mr. Collier says sympathy is one thing and logic is another. Very true! I did not speak of the 40,000 women in the State of Ma.s.sachusetts who are wives of drunkards, as a matter which shall appeal to your sympathies, or move your tears. Mr. Collier says that these women are to find their rights by influence at home.

Mr. COLLIER: That is what I mean.

Miss d.i.c.kINSON: That they are to do it by womanly and feminine love, and I tell him that is the duty of this same feminine element which is so admirable and adorable. I have seen men on your street corners, as I have seen men on the street corners of every city of America, with bloated faces, with mangled forms, and eyes blackened by the horrible vice and orgies carried on in their dens of iniquity and drunkenness and sin. I have seen men with not a semblance of humanity in their form or in their face, and not a sentiment of manhood in their souls. I have seen these men made absolute masters of wives and children; men who reel to their homes night after night to beat some helpless child; to beat some helpless woman. A woman was beaten here in Chicago the other day until there was scarcely a trace of the woman's face left, and scarcely a trace of the woman's form remaining. Mr. Collier tells me, then, that these women whose husbands reel home at 12, 1, 2, 3 o'clock at night, to demolish the furniture, beat the children, and destroy their wives' peace and lives--that these women are to find their rights by influence, by argument, by tenderness. These brutes who deserve the gallows if any human being can deserve anything so atrocious in these days--are these women, their wives, to find their safety, their security for themselves and their children, by influence, through argument and tenderness, or love, when nothing can influence save drink? The law gives man the power to say, "I will have drink; I will put this into my mouth." If the ballot were given to women they would vote against drunkenness. It is not sentiment, it is logic, if there be any logic in votes and in a home saved.

The Rev. R. L. COLLIER, in reply to Miss d.i.c.kinson, quoted a story from an English author of a drunkard who was reclaimed by a daughter's love and devotion. He never wanted to hear a woman say that law could accomplish what love could not.

Miss d.i.c.kINSON: I only want to ask Mr. Collier a question, and it is this: Whether he does not think that man would have been a great deal better off if this woman's vote could have offset his vote, and the rum thereby prevented from being sold at the outset?

Mr. COLLIER: I wish to say that law never yet cured crime; that men are not our only drunkards. Women are drunkards as well as men.

Miss d.i.c.kINSON (excitedly): It is not so, in anything like the same proportion; a drunken woman is a rare sight.

Mr. COLLIER: I wish to say that intemperance can never be cured by law.

Miss d.i.c.kINSON: Very well. You tell me that there are woman in the land who are drunkards. Doubtless there are. Then I stand here as a woman to entreat, to beseech, to pray against this sin. For the sake of these drunken woman, I ask the ballot to drag them back from the rum-shops and shut their doors [applause]. G.o.d forbid that I should underrate the power of love; that I should discard tenderness. Let us have entreaty, let us have prayers, and let us have the ballot, to eradicate this evil. Mr. Collier says he is full of sympathy, and intimates that women should stand here and elevate love above law. So long as a man can be influenced by love, well and good. When a man has sunk to the point where he beats his wife and children, and burns the house over them, reduces his family to starvation to get this accursed drink; when a man has sunk to such a level, is woman to stand still and entreat? Is this all woman is to do? No! She is to have the power added that will drag the firebrand out of his hand, and when sense and reason return, when the fire is extinguished, then, I say, let us have the power of love to interfere. I think keeping a man out of sin is better than trying to drag him out afterward by love.

Mr. COLLIER said he was placed in a false position of prominence because, unfortunately, he was the only gentleman on the platform who entertained serious convictions on the negative side of the subject. The only question was, would the ballot cure these wrongs? If so, he would like to hear the reasons, philosophical and logical, set forth. The appeals that had been made to the convention were illogical and sympathetic. He believed the persecutors of women were women. Fas.h.i.+on and the prejudice in the minds of women had been the barriers to their own elevation. That the ballot in the hands of women would cure these evils he denied.

Miss d.i.c.kINSON: Mr. Collier says, "The worst enemies of women are women"; that the worst opponents of this measure are fas.h.i.+on, dress and idleness. I confess there are no bitterer opponents or enemies of this measure than women. On that very ground I a.s.sert that the ballot will prove woman's best friend. If woman has something else to think about than simply to please men, something else than the splendor of her diamonds, or the magnificence of her carriage, you may be sure, with broader fields to survey, it would be a good thing for her. If women could earn their bread and buy the houses over their heads, in honorable and lucrative avocations; if they stood in the eye of the law men's equals, there would be better work, more hopeful hearts, more Christian magnanimity, and less petty selfishness and meanness than, I confess with sorrow and tears, are found among women to-day.

One of the ablest speeches of the convention was made by Judge Chas. B. Waite, on woman's position before the law. Immediately after this enthusiastic convention[356] the Illinois State Suffrage a.s.sociation was formed, a committee[357] appointed to visit Springfield and request the legislature to so "change the laws that the earnings of a married woman may be secured to her own use; that married women may have the same right to their own property that married men have; and that the mother may have an equal right with the father to the custody of the children." The need of such a committee existed in that year of 1869, and they seemed to have wrought effective service, since on March 24 the married woman's earnings act was approved.

AN ACT _in Relation to the Earnings of Married Women._

SEC. 1.--Be it enacted by the people of the State of Illinois, represented in the General a.s.sembly, That a married woman shall be ent.i.tled to receive, use and possess her own earnings, and sue for the same in her own name, free from the interference of her husband or his creditors: _Provided_, This act shall not be construed to give to the wife any compensation for any labor performed for her minor children or husband.

Mrs. Livermore, Mrs. Stanton, Judge Waite, Judge and Mrs.

Bradwell, had an enthusiastic meeting in the Opera House, Springfield, most of the members of the legislature being present.

September 9, 10, 1869, the Western Convention was held in Library Hall, Chicago; Mrs. Livermore presided. This influential gathering was largely attended by leading friends from other States.[358] Mrs. Kate Doggett and Dr. Mary Safford were appointed to attend the Woman's Industrial Congress at Berlin.

Letters were read from Wm. Lloyd Garrison and others.[359]

February 8, 9, 1870, the first annual meeting of the State a.s.sociation was held at Springfield in the Opera House, Hon.

James B. Bradwell in the chair. Many members of the legislature were present during the various sessions and a hearing[360]

before the House was granted next day. Resolutions were discussed and adopted, declaring that women were enfranchised under the fourteenth amendment. As a const.i.tutional convention was in session, and there was an effort being made to have an amendment for woman suffrage submitted to a vote of the people, greater interest was felt in all that was said at this convention.

The strange inconsistency of the opponents of woman suffrage was perhaps never more fully ill.u.s.trated than by the following occurrence: While the patriotic and earnest women of Illinois were quietly acting upon the advice of their representatives, and relying upon their "quiet, moral influence" to secure a just recognition of their rights in the const.i.tutional convention, a conservative woman of Michigan, who, afraid that the women of Illinois were about to lose their womanliness by asking for the right to have their opinions counted, deserted her home in the Peninsular State, went to Springfield, secured the hall of the convention, and gave two lectures against woman suffrage. A meeting was called at the close of the second lecture, and in a resolution moved by a member of the convention, as Mrs. Bradwell pertinently says, "the people of the State were told that _one woman_ had proved herself competent and well qualified to enlighten the const.i.tutional convention upon the evils of woman suffrage."[361] Such was the effect of this self-appointed obtruder from another State that the members of the convention, without giving a woman of their own State opportunity for reply, not only struck out the clause submitting the question to the people in a separate article, but actually incorporated in the body of the const.i.tution a clause which would not allow a woman to hold any office, public position, place of trust or emolument in the State. Through the efforts of such staunch friends as Judge Bradwell, Judge Waite and others, this latter clause was stricken out, and one inserted which, under a fair construction, will allow a woman to hold almost any office, provided she receives a sufficient number of votes.

By the accidental insertion of another clause in the const.i.tution under consideration, Section 1, of Article VII., any foreign born woman, naturalized previous to January, 1870, was given the right to vote. So that Illinois was the first State in the Union, since the time when the women of New Jersey were disfranchised, to give to foreign-born women the elective franchise. This mistake of the wise Solons was guarded as a State secret.

Previous to the great fire of 1871, the most popular and influential woman's club in Chicago was the organization known as Sorosis. This club, by the generous aid of many prominent gentlemen of the city, established pleasant headquarters, where, in addition to bright carpets and artistic decorations, were books, flowers, birds, and other refined accessories. Mrs.

Elizabeth Loomis says of the meetings held in those delightful parlors: "At every successive session we could see that we were gaining ground and receiving influential members. I well remember how it encouraged us to number the Rev. Dr. Thomas among our friends; and how gladly I made the motion to have him appointed temporary chairman in the absence of the president--a position which he cheerfully accepted." One of the most brilliant reunions ever enjoyed by the club, was a reception given to Mrs. Stanton and Miss Anthony, as they were _en route_ to California, early in June, 1871. Of this reception, Miss Anthony, in a letter from Des Moines, Iowa, to _The Revolution_, said: "Mrs. Stanton and I were in Chicago the evening the Illinois State and Cook County a.s.sociation held their opening reception at their new central bureau, a suite of fine rooms handsomely carpeted and furnished by prominent merchants of the city, where, with music, conversation, speeches, etc., the hours pa.s.sed delightfully away," forming, as Miss Anthony might have added, a delightful oasis amid the many discomforts of a continuous appeal to the people to deal justly.

In November, 1871, Mrs. Catharine V. Waite, of Hyde Park, made a written application to the board of registration, asking them to place her name upon the register as a voter, which they refused to do on the ground that she was a woman, whereupon Mrs. Waite filed a pet.i.tion in the Supreme Court of Cook county, stating the facts, and praying that the board be compelled by mandamus to place her name upon the register. Chief-Justice Jameson granted an alternative writ, returnable on the following Monday, commanding the board to show cause, if any they have, why Mrs.

Waite's name should not be placed upon the register. Judge Charles B. Waite, the husband of the plaintiff, made an exhaustive and unanswerable argument before Judge Jameson, but to no purpose as far as the result of that case was concerned, as the opinion of the court delivered January 12, 1872, which was very lengthy,[362] denied the relator with costs.

In 1872, Norman T. Ga.s.sette, esq., clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook county, and recorder of deeds, remembering the limited number of industrial occupations open to women, and seeing no reason why they could not perform the work of that office, resolved to try the experiment. A room was fitted up for the special use of women, a number of whom gladly accepted the proffered positions and received the same pay per folio as that earned by men. The experiment proved entirely satisfactory, Major Brockway having officially testified in regard to woman's especial fitness for the work.

There was an attempt this year to get a law licensing houses of ill-fame in Chicago, and an immense pet.i.tion was rolled up and presented to the legislature by ladies who desired to defeat the proposed enactment. They carried their point by as neat a flank movement as Sherman ever executed. A quiet move to Springfield with a pet.i.tion signed by thousands of the best men and women of the city, and our enemies found themselves checkmated before the game had fairly begun.

February 13, 14, 1872, the State a.s.sociation held its annual meeting at Bloomington, with large and interested audiences.[363]

March 28 Mrs. Jane Graham Jones secured a hearing before the legislature for Miss Anthony, who made one of her most convincing arguments, and had in her audience nearly every member of that body who voted for what was termed the Alta Hulett bill.

To Myra Bradwell and Alta C. Hulett belongs the credit of a long and persevering struggle to open the legal profession to women.

The latter succeeded at last in slipping the bolt which had barred woman from her right to practice law. We take the following statement in regard to Miss Hulett's experience from the "Women of the Century":

At the age of seventeen, Miss Alta Hulett entered the law office of Mr. Lathrop, of Rockford, as a student, and after a few months' study pa.s.sed the required examination, and sent her credentials to the Supreme Court, which, instead of granting or refusing her plea for admission, ignored it altogether. Myra Bradwell, the successful editor of the _Legal News_, had just been denied admission. Her case, stated in brief, is this: Mrs. Bradwell made application for a license to practice law. The court refused it on the ground of her being a married woman. She immediately brought a suit to test the legality of this decision. This interesting case was carried to the Supreme Court of the United States, which sustained the decision of the lower courts.[364] Miss Hulett had reason to expect that since she was unmarried, this decision would not prejudice her case.

Just on the threshold of her chosen profession, the rewards of youthful aspirations and earnest study apparently within her grasp, her dismay may be imagined when no response whatever was vouchsafed her pet.i.tion. A fainter heart would have accepted the situation. To battle successfully with old prejudices, entrenched in the strongholds of the law, required not only marked ability, but also a courage which could not surrender. Miss Hulett took a country school for four months, and bravely went to work again. While teaching and "boarding round," she prepared a lecture, "Justice vs.

The Supreme Court," in which she vigorously and eloquently stated her case. This lecture was delivered in Rockford, Freeport, and many other towns, enlisting everywhere sympathy and admiration in her behalf. After taking counsel with Lieutenant-Governor Early and other prominent members of the legislature, she drafted a bill, the provisions of which are:

_Be it enacted by the People of the State of Illinois represented in the General a.s.sembly_, That no person shall be precluded or debarred from any occupation, profession, or employment (except military), on account of s.e.x. Provided this act shall not be construed to affect the eligibility of any person to an elective office.

Nothing in this act shall be construed as requiring any female to work on streets or roads, or serve on juries. All laws inconsistent with this act are hereby repealed.

Friends obtained for this bill a very favorable introduction into the legislature, where it pa.s.sed and received the Governor's signature. Pa.s.sing up the steps to her home one rainy day, the telegram announcing that the bill had become a law was placed in her hands, and in referring to the incident, Miss Hulett said: "I shall never again know a moment of such supreme happiness." We can only add in this connection that after a most vigorous examination she stood at the head of a cla.s.s of twenty-eight, all the other members being gentlemen. This time the Supreme Court made the amende honorable, courteously and cordially welcoming her into the ranks of the profession on her birthday, June 4, 1873, and at the age of nineteen Miss Hulett commenced the practice of law.

But Miss Hulett's career, so full of promise, was soon ended. The announcement of her untimely death, which occurred at San Diego, Cal., March 26, 1877, sent a pang to the hearts of those who knew her personally, and of thousands who regarded her with pride as a representative woman. A Chicago correspondent says:

The daily press of the city have already borne ample testimony to her professional talents and success and to the esteem and admiration accorded her by the bar of Chicago and by the general public; for her somewhat exceptional position as well as her ability had made her one of the marked characters of the city. Her short life, so successful and brilliant to the public eye, was not without its dark and th.o.r.n.y places. Unusual responsibilities of a domestic nature, opposition of various kinds and keen disappointments only nerved her to greater persistency, and her courage was upheld by the generous and abundant recognition which she received on every hand from leading members of the bar--a recognition for which she never failed, when opportunity offered, to express her sense of profound obligation--and she was accustomed to say that the law was the most liberal of the professions. Much as Miss Hulett had accomplished hitherto, it was felt that she had only crossed the threshold of a career of surpa.s.sing usefulness; all things seemed possible to one so richly endowed; her mental vigor seemed matched by a _physique_, the apparent type of blooming health; but the seeds of disease were inherited and only awaited a combination of circ.u.mstances to a.s.sert their fatal power. Absorbing enthusiasm for her profession, and the cares of a rapidly increasing practice, made her overlook the insidious danger lurking in a cold, and not until her alarmed physician ordered her to the soft climate of Southern California did she comprehend her danger. This peremptory order was a terrible shock, and the forced exile from the field of her hopes and ambitions, more bitter than death. She never rallied, but continued rapidly to fail until the end came. At a meeting of the bar of Chicago, held to take action in commemoration of the death of Miss Alta M.

Hulett, attorney-at-law, the following was one of the resolutions adopted:

_Resolved_, That although the legal profession has. .h.i.therto been almost, if not altogether, considered as exclusively for men to practice, yet we freely recognize Miss Hulett's right to adopt it as her pursuit in life, and cheerfully bear testimony to the fact that in her practice she never demeaned herself in any way unbecoming a woman. She was always true to her clients and their interests, but she was equally true to her s.e.x and her duty; and if women who now are, or hereafter shall become, members of our profession shall be equally true, its honor will never be tarnished, nor the respect, good-will and esteem which it is the duty and pride of man to accord to woman be in the least diminished by their members.h.i.+p.

Which, translated, means that men are not only ready to welcome into one of their own professions women having the requisite intellectual qualifications, but that the welcome will be the warmer if the women entering shall not leave behind the more feminine attributes of the s.e.x. Portia did deliver judgment, but the counselor's cap became the pretty locks it could not hide, and the jurist's cloak lent additional grace to the symmetry and litheness of female youth.

M. Fredrica Perry began the study of law in the office of s.h.i.+pman & Loveridge, Coldwater, Michigan, in the winter of 1870-71. She spent two years in the law-office and then two years in the law-school of Michigan University. On graduating from the law-school in March, 1875, she was admitted to the Michigan bar.

She located in Chicago in August, and in September was admitted to the Illinois bar and began practice. A few weeks later she was, on motion of Miss Hulett, admitted to the U.S. Circuit and District Courts for the Northern District of Illinois. She was in partners.h.i.+p with Ellen A. Martin under the name of Perry & Martin. Her death occured June 3, 1883, and was the result of pneumonia. Miss Perry was a successful lawyer and combined in an eminent degree the qualities which distinguish able barristers and jurists; her mind was broad and catholic, clear, quick, logical and profound; her information on legal and general matters was extensive. She was an excellent advocate, a skillful examiner of witnesses, and understood as few do, save pract.i.tioners who have grown old in experience, the nice discriminations of common-law pleading and the rules of evidence.

She was engrossed in the study and practice of law, and gained steadily in efficiency and power year by year. She had the genius and ability for the highest attainment in all branches of civil practice, and joined with these the power of close application and hard work. She belonged to the Strong family which has furnished a good deal of the legal talent of the United States.

Judge Tuley, a chancery judge of Chicago before whom she often appeared, said of her at the bar meeting called to take action upon her death: "I was surprised at the extent of her legal knowledge and the great legal ac.u.men she displayed." And of her manner and method of conducting a certain bitterly-contested case in his court: "I became satisfied that the influence of woman would be highly beneficial in preserving and sustaining that high standard of professional courtesy which should always exist among the members of our profession."----Ellen A. Martin, of Perry & Martin, Chicago, spent two years in a law-office and two years in Michigan University law-school, and was graduated and admitted to practice in Michigan at the same time with Miss Perry. She was admitted in Illinois in January, 1876, and since then to the U. S. Circuit Court.----In the summer of 1879, Mrs.

M. B. R. Shay, Streator, graduating from the Bloomington law-school, was admitted to the bar. She has published a book ent.i.tled, "Students Guide to Common-Law Pleading."----In 1880, Cora A. Benneson, Quincy, was graduated from the Michigan University law-school and admitted to the Michigan and Illinois bar.----Ada H. Kepley, in practice with her husband at Effingham, was graduated from the Chicago law-school in June, 1870, but was refused admission to the bar. In November of that year, a motion was made in the Court at Effingham that she should be allowed to act as attorney in a case at that bar, and Judge Decius said that though the Supreme Court had refused to license a woman, he yet thought the motion was proper and in accord with the spirit of the age and granted the motion. Mrs. Kepley was finally admitted, January, 1881.----Miss Bessie Bradwell, graduated from the Union College of Law of Chicago and admitted to the bar in 1882, is a.s.sociated with her parents, Judge and Mrs. Bradwell, on the _Legal News_ and in the preparation of Bradwell's Appellate Court Reports.

July 1, 1873, the bill making women eligible as school officers became a law, and in the fall elections of the same year the people gave unmistakable indors.e.m.e.nt of the champions of the bill, by electing women as superintendent of schools in ten counties, while in sixteen others women were nominated. Many of these earnest women have been in the service ever since. As the practical results of woman's controlling influence as superintendents of schools seems to epitomize her work in all official positions, we submit a report compiled by Miss Mary Allen West, made at the request of the Illinois Social Science a.s.sociation, regretting that we have not s.p.a.ce for one of the model reports of Miss Sarah Raymond, also for ten years superintendent of the schools of Bloomington:

During the session of 1872-3, Judge Bradwell introduced into the legislature the following bill, which became a law April 3, 1873: "Be it enacted by the people of Illinois, represented in General a.s.sembly, that any woman, married or single, of the age of twenty-one years and upwards, and possessing the qualifications prescribed for men, shall be eligible to any office under the general school laws of this State." A second section provides for her giving bonds.

At the next election, November, 1873, ten ladies were elected to the office of county superintendent of schools for a term of four years. As this term has now expired, it is a favorable time to inquire how women have succeeded in this new line of labor. That the work that devolves upon county superintendents may be understood, I give a part of the synopsis of the duties pertaining to the office, as enumerated by Dr. Newton Bateman:

_First_--She must carefully inspect and pa.s.s upon the bonds of all towns.h.i.+p treasurers, and upon the securities given in each case, and is personally liable as well upon her official bond for any loss to the school funds sustained through her neglect or careless performance of duty.

_Second_--She must keep herself fully and carefully informed as to what towns.h.i.+ps have and what have not complied with the provisions of the law in respect to maintenance of schools; so that no funds may in ignorance be paid to towns.h.i.+ps having no legal claim to them.

_Third_--She must collect, transcribe, cla.s.sify, verify, tabulate, and transmit annually to the State superintendent the school statistics of her county, together with a detailed written report of the condition of the common schools therein.

_Fourth_--She must arrange, cla.s.sify, file and preserve all books, papers, bonds, official correspondence and other doc.u.ments belonging to her office.

_Fifth_--She must impart instruction and give directions to inexperienced teachers in the science, art and method of teaching, and must be ready, at all times, to counsel, advise and a.s.sist the school officers of her county.