Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 4.djvu/814

 order to keep her name on the registration list this entire process had to be repeated every year, while a man's name once placed on the list was kept there without further effort on his part, and the payment of the same poll tax entitled him to full suffrage.

In 1881 the poll tax was reduced to fifty cents, and the law was changed so that women's names should remain on the registration list so long as they continued to reside and pay their taxes in the place where they were registered. Even now, however, it requires constant watchfulness on their part to have this done. In 1890 the poll tax as a prerequisite for voting was abolished for men, and in 1892 for women. Only a few weeks in each year were set apart when women might register until 1898, when it was enacted that the time of registration should be the same for both.

The School Suffrage includes only a vote for members of the school board and not for supervisors, appropriations or any questions connected with the public schools. Women are not authorized to attend caucuses or have any voice in nominations of school officers. As they were thus deprived of all voice in selecting candidates, an association, Independent Women Voters, was formed in Boston in 1889 by Mrs. Eliza Trask Hill, who served as president until 1896, when she removed from the city, and Mrs. Sarah J. Boyden has filled the office since then. This organization, which was entered at the registration office as a political party, holds a caucus in each ward between January 1 and April 1 every year and nominates candidates for the School Board. Such nomination by 100 or more legal voters entitles their names to be placed on the Australian ballot. Some of the nominees of the Independent Women Voters are often accepted by the regular parties, but even when this is refused they are sometimes elected over the Republican or Democratic candidates.

Because of the conditions attached and the small privilege granted it is remarkable that any considerable number of women should have voted during these past years. When School Suffrage was first granted, in 1879, only 934 women voted, and for the first seven years the average was only 940. Since then there has been a large increase of interest. During the past seven years the number never has fallen below 5,000. In 1898, 5,201 women