[237] The History is indebted for this chapter to Mrs. Mary E. Holmes of Chicago, who has been officially connected with the State Equal Suffrage Association since 1884.
[238] State conventions have been held as follows: Watseka, 1884; Geneseo, 1885; Sandwich, 1886; Galva, 1887; Rockford, 1888; Joliet, 1889; Moline, 1890; Kewanee, 1891; Aurora, 1892; Chicago (World's Fair), 1893; Danville, 1894; Decatur, 1895; Harvey, 1896; Waukegan, 1897; Springfield, 1898; Barry, 1899. The twenty-seventh annual meeting took place in Edgewater, Oct. 11, 12, 1900.
[239] Among the officers for whom the Legislature has the power to allow women to vote are Presidential electors, members of the State Board of Equalization, clerk of the Appellate Court, county collector, county surveyor, members of the Board of Assessors, sanitary district trustees, members of the Board of Review, all officers of cities, villages and towns (except police magistrates), supervisor, town clerk, assessor, collector and highway commissioner.
The Legislature has power also to permit women to vote on general questions submitted to the electors, besides voting in all annual and special town meetings.
[240] During these years various suffrage bills were introduced by other organizations. The school board of Winnetka had one to give women a right to vote on all matters relating to schools; the W. C. T. U. one for a constitutional amendment; and members of the Legislature occasionally on their own responsibility introduced bills.
[241] In 1891 an anti-suffrage petition, signed by twelve persons, aroused some interest on account of its novelty. In later Legislatures their petitions do not seem to have appeared, but some of those twelve signers can be found composing the Chicago Anti Suffrage Society of the present day.
[242] In April, 1891, fifteen women of Lombard voted at the municipal election under a special charter which gave the franchise to citizens over twenty-one years of age. The judges were about to refuse the votes, but Miss Ellen A. Martin, of the law firm of Perry & Martin in Chicago, argued the legal points so conclusively that they were accepted. No one has contested that election, and the women have established their right to vote.
[243] Although Dr. Smith was defeated she was really the first woman who served as trustee of the State University, for Gov. John P. Altgeld appointed her to fill a member's unexpired term and she took her seat one month before Mrs. Flower, serving eighteen months. At the next election her name was again placed on the Democratic ticket, which was again defeated.
[244] They continued to hold delegate conventions every two years to nominate a woman for trustee, until the Primary Election Law, recently passed, provided that delegates to nominating conventions must be elected at the polls.
[245] During the Legislature of 1873 a Joint Special Committee was appointed to revise the laws. Through the heroic efforts of Miles B. Castle in the Senate and Judge James B. Bradwell in the House, with the assistance of the veteran law professor and reviser of statutes, the Hon. Harvey B. Hurd, a most liberal legislation for women, in all directions possible at that time, was secured.