As it was the general impression that women had received the full School Franchise by this bill, they proceeded to vote on bonds, location of buildings and various other matters pertaining to the schools, and also for county superintendents. The bill was obscurely worded, and it has taken four decisions of the Supreme Court of Illinois to decide just the points which it covered and the limits to which it might be constitutionally extended. As it now stands, under this law women can vote only for candidates for such school offices as have been created by the Legislature. (See Suffrage.)
However, this bill was useful in securing from the Supreme Court the ruling that the Legislature had power to regulate the suffrage concerning all positions created by itself. Heretofore the weight of judicial opinion had been the other way; that no change whatever could be made in the suffrage except by constitutional amendment.[239]
During the session of 1893 R. W. Coon secured the passage in the Senate of a Township Suffrage Bill prepared by the State association. Its members argued that if school offices not named in the constitution are creations of the Legislature, so are most of the township offices and therefore it has power to grant women the suffrage for these. This bill was accompanied by a petition of 12,000 names. Senator Bogardus made a spirited report on these, extolling the character of the signers, whose standing he had ascertained from the senators of their districts. It passed the Senate by 26 votes, a constitutional majority. In the House the committee reported it favorably, many members pledged themselves to its support, and it went through the second reading safely; but just when expectation ran highest, it was referred back to the committee and smothered.
In this same Legislature a bill to repeal the School Suffrage Law was defeated in the House, less than 40 of the 153 members voting aye. It was not brought to a vote in the Senate.
In 1895 Senator Coon introduced the Township Bill again, but owing to absentees it received only 23 votes, 26 being necessary to pass it. Fearing that a majority of the members of the House were pledged to vote for it, the chairman of the committee to which it was referred made a sub-committee of three notorious opponents who took care that it never was reported.
In 1897 Senator G. W. Monroe took charge of the State association's measures. Bills for Township and Bond Suffrage, and for suffrage for certain city, county and township officers and for Presidential electors, were introduced by him but failed to pass.
In the special session of 1898 only such matters could be considered as were named by Gov. John R. Tanner in calling it. The State association petitioned him to include woman suffrage in the list, but he did not grant the request. One of the subjects named was taxation. The association prepared a bill to exempt the property of women from taxation until they were allowed to vote. All the metropolitan papers were interested in or amused by this bill, and gave it considerable publicity, but it was not acted upon.
In 1899 the three bills championed by Senator Monroe in 1897 were managed by Senator Isaac H. Hamilton. He forced two of them to a vote, but neither received a majority.
During all this time Mrs. Catharine Waugh McCulloch, a practicing lawyer of Chicago, auditor of the National Association and former president of the State E. S. A., was the very efficient legislative superintendent. She pressed the bills with a force which almost brought success by its own momentum, and yet by her good judgment and fair methods kept the respect of legislators who were bitterly opposed to her measures.[240]
Sometimes the hearings on these bills occurred in the Senate Chamber or the House of Representatives. One of the most noteworthy was in 1895, when about twenty women, representing many different localities, societies and nationalities, made clever five-minute speeches.