In the House it was persistently delayed by the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, George H. Fletcher, and the friends could not get it upon the calendar in time to be reached unless it should be made a special order. Edward T. Young endeavored to have this done, but as there were several hundred other bills to be considered and less than three days of the session left, his motion was lost. On the last night, Mr. Young and H. P. Bjorge made an effort to have the rules suspended and the bill put upon its final passage. The vote on this motion was 54 yeas, 44 nays, but as a two-thirds vote is necessary it was lost. Speaker W. E. Lee voted with the affirmative.[344]
Three Suffrage Bills were introduced into the Legislature of 1895, two in the House and one in the Senate. The first, for an amendment to the State constitution, was offered by O. L. Brevig and was indefinitely postponed. S. T. Littleton presented the second, which was to give women a vote upon all questions pertaining to the liquor traffic. This found favor in the eyes of the W. C. T. U., as did also the County Option Bill of J. F. Jacobson, but both were unsuccessful. George T. Barr introduced a Municipal Suffrage Bill into the Senate, but too late for it to be acted upon.
In 1897 Ignatius Donnelly secured the introduction of a bill to enfranchise taxpaying women. A hearing was given by the Judiciary Committee, at which Mrs. Nelson argued that in simple justice women who pay taxes should have a voice in their expenditure or be exempted from taxation, but the bill was not reported.
This year the State Federation of Clubs secured a resolution to submit an amendment to the electorate in 1898, giving women the privilege of voting for and serving on Library Boards.
In 1899 the Local Council of Women of Minneapolis obtained the Traveling Library Bill.
During this year no petitioning or legislative work was done by the suffragists. The previous legislature had submitted an amendment, which carried, providing that all amendments hereafter must receive a majority of the largest number of votes cast at an election, in order to be adopted. The precedent had been established in 1875 of requiring a vote of the electors on the granting of School Suffrage to women, and in 1898, of Library Suffrage, and it was held that the same would have to be done on granting Municipal or any other form of the franchise.
Dower and curtesy were abolished March 9, 1875. If either husband or wife die without a will, the survivor, if there is issue living, is entitled to the homestead for life and one-third of the rest of the real estate in fee-simple, or by such inferior tenure as the deceased was possessed of, but subject to its just proportion of the debts. If there are no descendants, the entire real estate goes absolutely to the survivor. The personal property follows the same rules. If either husband or wife has wilfully and without just cause deserted and lived separately from the other for the entire year immediately prior to his or her decease, such survivor shall not be entitled to any estate whatever in any of the lands of the deceased.
The estate of a child who dies without a will and leaves neither wife nor children, goes to the father; if he is dead, to the mother.
The wife can not convey or encumber her separate real estate without the joinder of her husband. The husband can sell or mortgage all his real estate without her joinder, but subject to her dower. They are both free agents as to personal property.
If divorce is obtained for the adultery of the wife, her own real estate may be withheld from her, but not so in case of the husband.