Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 3.djvu/836

Rh to issue for Mrs. Foltz; so it was decided to make hers the test-case, and by the courtesy of Judge Morrison, now chief-justice of the Supreme Court, Mrs. Gordon was joined with Mrs. Foltz in the prosecution of the cause. The board of directors of the college consisted of the chief-justice of the Supreme Bench and seven other lawyers, among the most distinguished and able in the State. The case attracted great attention and deep interest was taken in the proceedings. Judges Lake and Cope, who were ex-justices of the Supreme Court, assisted by T. B. Bishop, another learned practitioner at the bar, were arrayed as counsel for the defense against these comparatively young students in the law, who appeared unaided in their own behalf. After one of the most interesting legal contests in the history of the State these women came off victors, and the good-natured public, through the press, offered them congratulations. But the defendants would not yield without a stubborn resistance and carried their cause on appeal to the Supreme Court; hence many months elapsed before the final struggle came, but victory again rewarded the petitioners, the Supreme Court deciding that women should be admitted to the law department of the State University. Although excluded from the benefit of the lectures in the college, Mesdames Gordon and Foltz had improved their time in study, and in December, 1879, both were admitted to the Supreme Court of the State, after a thorough examination.

Prior to this legal contest, in the summer of 1878, when delegates to the constitutional convention were to be elected, Mrs. Gordon, urged by her friends in San Joaquin county, became an independent candidate only a week or two before the election. With Mrs. Foltz she made a very brief though brilliant canvass, attracting larger and more enthusiastic audiences than any other speaker. Mrs. Gordon received several hundred votes for the office, and felt compensated for the time and money spent by the great interest awakened in the subject of woman suffrage.

As soon as the constitutional convention assembled in September, Mrs. Gordon, although still pursuing her legal studies, was able as a newspaper correspondent to closely watch the deliberations of that body and urge the insertion of a woman suffrage clause in the new organic law. The State Society delegated Mrs. Knox Goodrich, Mrs. Sarah Wallis and Mrs. Watkins to join Mrs. Gordon in pressing the claims of woman, but the opposition was too strong and the suffrage clause remained declaring male citizens entitled to vote, though a section in the bill of rights, together with other provisions in the new constitution, renders it quite probable that the legislature has the right to enfranchise women without having to amend the organic law. At all events the new instrument is far more favorable to women than the old, as will now be shown. The agitation of the question of the admission of women to the Law College, which began during the session of the convention, led that body to incorporate the following provision in the constitution:

. 18. No person shall be debarred admission to any of the collegiate departments of the State University on account of sex.

Remembering the hard struggle by which the right to practice law had been secured to women, and the danger of leaving it to the caprice of