The officers at present are: Vice-president, Mrs. Dollie Romans Bradley; corresponding secretary, Mrs. Nellie Welsh Nelson; recording secretary, Mrs. Clara M. Richey; treasurer, Mrs. Mary J. Coggeshall; executive committee, Mrs. Anna H. Ankeny, Mrs. Emma C. Ladd, Miss Alice Priest; auditors, Mrs. Martha C. Callanan, Mrs. Ina Light Taylor; member national executive committee, Mrs. Margaret W. Campbell; State organizer, Dr. Frances Woods.
[262] It is plainly impossible to mention the names of all or even a large part of the workers in a State where so much has been done. A few of the most prominent not already named are George W. Bemis; Mesdames Irene Adams, Virginia Branner, S. J. Cole, S. J. Cottrell, Mary E. Emsley, Clara F. Harkness, Julia Clark Hallam, Helen M. Harriman, Etta S. Kirk, Alice S. Longley, Hannah Lecompte, Florence Maskrey, Emily Phillips, Martha A. Peck, Mettie Laub Romans, C. A. Reynolds, Cordelia Sloughton, Roma W. Woods; Misses Daisy Deighton, Ella Moffatt, Katharine Pierce.
CHAPTER XL.
KANSAS.[263]
The first Woman's Rights Association was organized in Kansas in the spring of 1859, by a little coterie of twenty-five men and women, with the object of securing suffrage for women from the convention which was to meet in July to form a constitution for Statehood. They did not succeed in this but to them is largely due its remarkably liberal provisions regarding women.[264]
Afterwards local suffrage societies were formed but there was no attempt to have a State association until 1884. In the winter of that year Mrs. Bertha H. Ellsworth was sent to the National Convention at Washington by the society of Lincoln, and she returned enthusiastic for organization. After some correspondence the first convention was called by Mrs. Hetta P. Mansfield, who had been appointed vice-president of Kansas by the National Association, and it met in the Senate Chamber at Topeka, June 25. Mrs. Helen M. Gougar, who was making a lecture tour of the State, was invited to preside, and Mrs. Anna C. Wait, president of the five-year-old society at Lincoln and for many years the strongest force behind the movement, acted as secretary.[265] Telegrams of greeting were received from Lucy Stone and Henry B. Blackwell, editors of the Woman's Journal. At the evening meeting Mrs. Ellsworth recited an original poem and Mrs. Gougar delivered a fine address to a large audience. Professor W. H. Carruth, of the University of Kansas, assisted, coming as delegate from a flourishing suffrage society at Lawrence, of which Miss Sarah A. Brown was president and Mrs. Annie L. Diggs secretary. A constitution was adopted and Mrs. Mansfield was elected president; Mrs. Wait, vice-president; Mrs. Ellsworth, corresponding secretary.
In the fall of 1884 Mrs. Ellsworth and Mrs. Clara B. Colby of Nebraska, made an extended lecture and organizing tour. At Salina they met and enlisted Mrs. Laura M. Johns, and then began the systematic work which rapidly brought Mrs. Johns to the front as the leader of the suffrage forces in Kansas. In addition to her great ability as an organizer, she is an unsurpassed manager of conventions, a forceful writer, an able speaker and a woman of winning personality.
On Jan. 15, 16, 1885, the State association held its annual meeting in Topeka, during the first week of the Legislature. Its chief business was to secure the introduction of a bill granting Municipal Woman Suffrage, in which it succeeded. Mrs. Gougar was an inspiring figure throughout the convention, addressing a large audience in Assembly Hall. A Committee on the Political Rights of Women was secured in the Lower House by a vote of 75 yeas, 45 nays, after a spirited contest. One was refused in the Senate by a tie vote. Much interest and discussion among the members resulted and a favorable sentiment was created. Mrs. Wait was made president, Mrs. Johns, vice-president. A second convention was held this year in Salina, October 28, 29, with "Mother" Bickerdyke and Mrs. Colby as the principal speakers. A large amount of work was planned, all looking to the end of securing Municipal Suffrage from the next Legislature.