Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 4.djvu/1042

 courtesy of the men during this period. Mrs. Elizabeth Matthews, who removed from New Orleans to Port Townsend in 1885, states that, although accustomed from babyhood to the deferential gallantry of the men of the South, she never had dreamed that any women in the world were receiving such respectful consideration as she found in Washington Territory at that time. The political parties realized the necessity of putting their best men to the front, and it was fully conceded that ethics had become a factor in politics.

Prior to the Legislature of 1886 some discussion arose as to the constitutionality of the Equal Suffrage Law, and, in order to remove all doubt, a strengthening Act was passed, which was approved by Gov. Watson C. Squire, November 29.

On Feb. 3, 1887, the case of Harlan vs. Washington came before the Territorial Supreme Court. Harlan had been convicted of carrying on a swindling game by a jury composed of both men and women, and he contested the verdict on the ground that women were not legal voters. The Supreme Court, whose personnel had been entirely changed through a new Presidential administration, decided that the law conferring the elective franchise upon them was void because it had not been fully described in its title. This decision also rendered void nineteen other laws which had been enacted under the same conditions.

The members of the next Legislature had been elected so long before the rendering of this decision that their seats could not be contested; and as their election had been by both men and women they were determined to re-establish the law which the Supreme Court had ruthlessly overthrown. Therefore the Equal Suffrage Law was re-enacted, perfectly titled and worded, and was approved by Gov. Eugene Semple, Jan. 18, 1888.

The members of a convention to prepare a State constitution were soon to be chosen, and the opponents of woman suffrage were most anxious to have the question considered by the Supreme Court before the election of the delegates. They arranged that the judges of the spring municipal election in a certain precinct should refuse to accept the vote of a Mrs. Nevada Bloomer. the wife of a saloon-keeper and herself an avowed opponent of woman suffrage. This was done on April 3, and she brought