All these States had granted school suffrage and could grant municipal suffrage by act of the legislature. In 1893 municipal suffrage bills were defeated in Minnesota, Missouri, North Dakota, and South Dakota. Full suffrage bills were defeated in Arizona and New Mexico. A township suffrage bill was defeated in Illinois, a license suffrage bill in Connecticut, and a village suffrage bill in New York. In that year, also, the Supreme Courts gave decisions adverse to suffrage laws. In 1893 a bill was defeated in the United States Senate which proposed to give women the municipal vote in the Cherokee Outlet. The vote stood 40 to 9.
In Washington Territory the Legislature passed a law conferring suffrage on woman in 1883; but this was declared invalid by the courts in 1887, because its nature was not sufficiently defined in its title. It was re- enacted in 1888, and again declared invalid by the United States Territorial Court, on the ground that the Act of Congress which organized the Territorial legislature did not empower it to extend the suffrage to women. In 1889 the people, in forming their State constitution, decided against suffrage.
In 1894, in the election of November 6, Kansas defeated a constitutional amendment granting full suffrage, by a majority of 34,827.
In Iowa, in the same year, the Senate defeated a proposition to submit a suffrage constitutional amendment to the people. In 1895, bills for full suffrage and for municipal suffrage again failed to pass, and the question was submitted to the people in 1896, and resulted in defeat.
In 1895, also, a township suffrage bill was twice defeated in Illinois.
In Indiana a proposition to strike the word "male" out of the Constitution, was not even reported from the committee to which it was referred.
In the same year, in Kansas, a bill passed the Senate which proposed to confer upon nine specified women the full suffrage in response to their petition. The Senate also passed a bill conferring upon women the vote for presidential electors; but neither ever reached a vote in the House. In Michigan, the same year, a proposition to submit a constitutional amendment was defeated, and a similar resolution in Missouri was also defeated. Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Washington, Wisconsin, and South Carolina also defeated propositions to submit the question to the people in 1895.
Since January, 1897, Nova Scotia, two Territories, and ten States have dealt with the suffrage proposal, and all but one of these have rendered adverse decisions. In Nova Scotia an old bill was reconsidered, and a larger majority was obtained against it. The territories are Arizona and Oklahoma. The states in which it was defeated are Iowa, Nevada, Nebraska, Kansas, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, and California. The last two had given it heavy defeats but a few months previously. Indiana's Supreme Court handed down an adverse decision. The favorable state was Washington, where the Legislature voted to submit an amendment to the people next year.
Certainly, the question cannot be said not to have received the attention that any vital subject might have claimed, and the answers show that, as comprehension of the meaning of democracy has grown, and as liberty of thought and action for men and women has increased, the proposition to cast an unequal burden, not upon a disfranchised class, but upon an unfranchised sex which in every class has its own correlative and equal duties, rights, and privileges, is losing ground.
But, it is answered, look at the suffrage triumphs in Utah State and Idaho. Let us look at them more closely. It is my opinion that a few more such triumphs would end in its utter overthrow. Utah introduced suffrage by a simple legislative act. Woman suffrage was abolished in Utah Territory by Federal statute, because it was found to be sustaining the Mormon Church and the institution of polygamy. The Suffragists profess to hold in abhorrence churchly and polygamous rule. Here was an opportunity for them to say to the Government: "This is not what we meant by suffrage, nor what we desire suffrage to be used for. We approve this real disfranchisement." Did they do anything of the kind? Far from it. In 1876 they passed the following: "Resolved, That, the right of suffrage being vested in the women of Utah by their constitutional and lawful enfranchisement, and by six years of use, we denounce the proposition about to be again presented to Congress for the disfranchisement of the women of that Territory, as an outrage on the freedom of thousands of legal voters and a gross innovation of vested rights; we demand the abolition of the system of numbering the ballots, in order that the women may be thoroughly free to vote as they choose, without supervision or dictation; and that the chair appoint a committee of three persons, with power to add to their number, to memorialize Congress, and otherwise watch over the rights of women of Utah in this regard during the next twelvemonth."