Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 4.djvu/1011

 in Omaha, Neb., and Mrs. Wells and Mrs. Zina D. H. Young attended. Miss Anthony, Mrs. May Wright Sewall, chairman of the Executive Committee, and many other distinguished women were in attendance. Mrs. Wells, as vice-president for Utah, presented an exhaustive report of the suffrage work in the Territory, which was received with a great deal of enthusiasm.

At the national convention in Washington the previous January the proposed disfranchisement of Utah women by the Edmunds Bill had been very fully discussed and a resolution adopted, that “the proposition to disfranchise the women of Utah for no cause whatever is a cruel display of the power which lies in might alone, and that this Congress has no more right to disfranchise the women of Utah than the men of Wyoming.” This sympathy was gratefully acknowledged by the women of the Territory.

The suffrage women throughout the various States made vigorous protests against the injustice of this pending measure. A committee appointed at the convention in Washington, in the winter of 1887, presented a memorial to the President of the United States requesting him not to sign the bills, but to veto any measure for the disfranchisement of the women of Utah. Mrs. Belva A. Lockwood made an able speech before the convention on this question. There were at that time several bills before Congress to deprive Utah women of the elective franchise.

During the subsequent years of this agitation every issue of the Woman's Exponent contained burning articles, letters and editorials upon this uncalled-for and unwarranted interference with the affairs of the women of this Territory. The advocates of the rights of all women stood up boldly for those of Utah, notwithstanding the scoffs and obloquy cast upon them. It was a fierce battle of opinions and the weaker had to succumb. The Strong power of Congress conquered at last, and the Edmunds-Tucker Act of 1887 wrested from all the women, Gentile and