The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV

by Unknown

It was a Democratic victory and the women on that ticket were elected—Dr. Martha Hughes Cannon to the Senate, Eurithe Le Barthe and Sarah A. Anderson to the House; Margaret A. Caine, auditor of Salt Lake County; Ellen Jakeman, treasurer Utah County; Delilah K. Olson, recorder Millard County; Fannie Graehl (Rep.), recorder Box Elder County, and possibly some others.

In the Legislature of 1897, Mrs. Le Barthe introduced a bill forbidding women to wear large hats in places of public entertainment, which was passed. Dr. Cannon championed the measure by which a State Board of Health was created, and was appointed by the Governor as one of its first members. She had part in the defeat of the strong lobby that sought to abolish the existing State Board of Public Examiners, which prevents incompetents from practicing medicine. She introduced a bill compelling the State to educate the deaf, mute and blind; another requiring seats for women employes; what was known as the Medical Bill, by which all the sanitary measures of the State are regulated and put in operation; and another providing for the erection of a hospital for the State School of the Deaf, Dumb and Blind, carrying with it the necessary appropriation. All the bills introduced or championed by Dr. Cannon became laws. She served on the Committees on Public Health, Apportionment, Fish and Game, Banks and Banking, Education, Labor, etc.

At the close of their second term the Senate presented her with a handsome silver-mounted album containing the autographs of all the Senators and employes. She had drawn what is known as the long term, and at its close she was chosen to present a handsome gavel to the president of the Senate in behalf of the members. Thus far she has been the only woman Senator.

In 1899 Mrs. Alice Merrill Horne (Dem.), the third woman elected to the House, was appointed chairman of the State University Land Site Committee, to which was referred the bill authorizing the State to take advantage of the congressional land grant offered for expending $301,000 in buildings and providing for the removal of the State University to the new site. At a jubilee in recognition of the gift, held by the faculty and students, at which the Governor and Legislature were guests, Mrs. Horne was the only woman to make a speech and was introduced by President Joseph T. Kingsbury in most flattering terms for the work she had done in behalf of education. She championed the Free Scholarship Bill giving one hundred annual Normal School appointments, each for a term of four years; and one creating a State Institute of Art for the encouragement of the fine arts and for art in public school education and in manufactures, for an annual exhibition, a course of lectures and a State art collection, both of which passed. She was a member of committees on Art, Education, Rules and Insane Asylum; was the only member sent to visit the State Insane Asylum, going by direction of the Speaker of the House, as a committee of one, to surprise the superintendent and report actual conditions. Mrs. Horne was presented with a photographed group of the members of the House, herself the only woman in the picture.

The November election of 1900 was fraught with great interest to the women, as the State officials were to be elected as well as the Legislature, and they were anxious that there should be some women's names on the tickets for both the House and Senate, and that a woman should be nominated for State Superintendent of Public Instruction by both parties. For this office the Republican and the Democratic women presented candidates,—Mrs. Emma J. McVicker and Miss Ada Faust,—but both conventions gave the nomination to men. Meantime Dr. John R. Park, the superintendent, died suddenly and Gov. Wells appointed Mrs. McVicker as his successor for the unfinished term.

Mrs. J. Ellen Foster, of Washington, D. C. was sent to Utah by the Republican National Committee, and with Mrs. W. F. Boynton and others, made a spirited and successful campaign.

There never has been any scramble for office on the part of women, and here, as in the other States where they have the suffrage, there is but little disposition on the part of men to divide with them the "positions of emolument and trust." Only one woman was nominated for a State office in 1900, Mrs. Elizabeth Cohen for the Legislature, and she was defeated with the rest of the Democratic ticket. All of the women who have served in the Legislature have been elected by the Democrats.

Several women were elected to important city and county offices. In many of these offices more women than men are employed as deputies and clerks.

In 1900 Mrs. W. H. Jones was sent as delegate to the National Republican Convention in Philadelphia, and Mrs. Elizabeth Cohen to the Democratic in Kansas City, and both served throughout the sessions. This is the first instance of the kind on record, although women were sent as alternates from Wyoming to the National Republican Convention at Minneapolis in 1888.

Women are exempted from sitting on juries, the same as editors, lawyers and ministers, but they are not excluded if they wish to serve or the persons on trial desire them. None has thus far been summoned.