Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 4.djvu/847

 second, which was to give women a vote upon all questions pertaining to the liquor traffic. This found favor in the eyes of the W. C. T. U., as did also the County Option Bill of J. F. Jacobson, but both were unsuccessful. George T. Barr introduced a Municipal Suffrage Bill into the Senate, but too late for it to be acted upon.

In 1897 Ignatius Donnelly secured the introduction of a bill to enfranchise taxpaying women. A hearing was given by the Judiciary Committee, at which Mrs. Nelson argued that in simple justice women who pay taxes should have a voice in their expenditure or be exempted from taxation, but the bill was not reported.

This year the State Federation of Clubs secured a resolution to submit an amendment to the electorate in 1898, giving women the privilege of voting for and serving on Library Boards.

In 1899 the Local Council of Women of Minneapolis obtained the Traveling Library Bill.

During this year no petitioning or legislative work was done by the suffragists. The previous legislature had submitted an amendment, which carried, providing that all amendments hereafter must receive a majority of the largest number of votes cast at an election, in order to be adopted. The precedent had been established in 1875 of requiring a vote of the electors on the granting of School Suffrage to women, and in 1898, of Library Suffrage, and it was held that the same would have to be done on granting Municipal or any other form of the franchise.

Dower and curtesy were abolished March 9, 1875. If either husband or wife die without a will, the survivor, if there is issue living, is entitled to the homestead for life and one-third of the rest of the real estate in fee-simple, or by such inferior tenure as the deceased was possessed of, but subject to its just proportion of the debts. If there are no descendants, the entire real estate goes absolutely to the survivor. The personal property follows the same rules. If either husband or wife has wilfully and without just cause deserted and lived separately from the other for the entire year immediately prior to his or her decease, such survivor shall not be entitled to any estate whatever in any of the lands of the deceased.