Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 4.djvu/694

 

For thirty years the women of Iowa have been petitioning its legislative body for the elective franchise. Any proposed amendment to the State constitution must pass two successive Legislatures before being submitted to the voters, which makes it exceedingly difficult to secure one. Throughout the State, however, there has been a steady, healthy growth of favorable sentiment and the cause now numbers its friends by thousands.

The Iowa Equal Suffrage Association was formed in 1870 and ever since has held annual conventions. That of 1884 took place in Des Moines, November 27, 28, Mrs. Narcissa T. Bemis presiding. The report of the vice-president, Mrs. Jane Amy McKinney, stated that Miss Matilda Hindman of Pennsylvania had been employed two months of the year, besides working several weeks upon her own responsibility. She had delivered seventy-two lectures, formed about forty organizations and obtained many hundreds of names to pledges of help. Mrs. Helen M. Gougar of Indiana had given fifteen addresses, distributed 3,000 tracts and secured 500 subscribers for her paper, Our Herald. Mrs. Mariana T. Folsome, financial secretary, had gone from town to town, arranging her own meetings and visiting many places where no suffrage work ever before had been done. Mrs. Margaret W. Campbell, State organizer, had addressed 139 meetings and assisted in organizing ten counties. Letters urging a Sixteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution had been written to all the Iowa members of Congress.

The convention met Oct. 21, 22, 1885, in Cedar Rapids, and elected Mrs. Campbell president. Lucy Stone and Henry B. Blackwell delivered evening addresses, while among the