Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 4.djvu/1008

 

To write the history of woman suffrage in Utah one mus turn backward to 1870, when the Legislature of the Territory passed a bill conferring the franchise upon women, to which acting-Governor S. A. Mann affixed his signature February 12. From that time women voted at all elections, while some of them took a practical interest in public matters and acted as delegates to political conventions and members of Territorial and county committees.

The first attempt to elect a woman to any important office was made in Salt Lake City at the county convention of 1878, when Mrs. Emmeline B. Wells was nominated for treasurer. She received the vote of the entire delegation, but the statute including the word "male" was held to debar women from holding political offices. A bill was presented to the next Legislature with petitions numerously signed asking that this word be erased from the statutes, which was passed. Gov. George W. Emory, however, refused to sign it, and though other Legislatures passed similar bills by unanimous vote, none ever received his signature or that of any succeeding governor.

In June, 1871, Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Miss Susan B. Anthony, the president and vice-president-at-large of the National Woman Suffrage Association, stopped at Salt Lake City on their way to the Pacific Coast and met many of the prominent men and women.

In 1872 the Woman's Exponent was established, and it is impossible to estimate the advantage this little paper gave to the women of this far western Territory. From its first issue it was the champion of the suffrage cause, and by exchanging with