Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 4.djvu/685

 convincing articles were prepared for the newspapers, petitions circulated and 30,000 names of men and women obtained.

Accompanied by these a joint resolution was presented to the Legislature of 1899—in the Senate by O. Z. Hubbell, in the House by Quincy A. Blankinship, and both labored strenuously for its passage. The Senate Bill was referred to the Committee on Revision of Laws, Frederick A. Joss, chairman, and the House Bill to the Judiciary Committee, Silas A. Canada, chairman. They granted hearings, were addressed by Miss Marie Brehm of Chicago, national superintendent of franchise for the W. C. T. U., and reported the bill favorably. It passed the Senate by unanimous vote, January 25. The members of the House had been personally interviewed by Mrs. Tompkins and Miss Brehm, and two-thirds of them were pledged to vote for the measure.

The law provides that not more than two bills for amending the State constitution can be before the Legislature at one time, and, as two preceded this one, Speaker Littleton, who was opposed to it, ruled it out of order and would not permit it to be considered. The same condition existed in the Senate but that body deemed its action perfectly legal, as all which could be done was to submit the bill to the next Legislature. Thus all the work of nearly two years was lost.

In 1899 a number of Factory Inspection Laws were passed, some of them especially intended to protect women. While these serve their purpose in one way they may defeat it in another, as those, for instance, limiting the work of women to ten hours a day and prohibiting their employment at night in any manufacturing concern, when no such restrictions are imposed on men, which often is to their advantage with employers. Seats for women employes, suitable toilet-rooms and a full hour for the noonday meal are commendable features of these new laws.

Through the efforts of Robert Dale Owen and a few other broad-minded men, when the constitution of Indiana was revised in 1851 the laws for women were made more liberal than those