Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 6.djvu/190

 Mrs. Catharine Waugh McCulloch, a lawyer of Chicago, who had been closely identified with the Illinois law. For the first time in the history of Indiana's struggle for equal suffrage there was active opposition by women. Nineteen, all of Indianapolis, appealed to the Senate Committee on Rights and Privileges, which had the bill in charge, for a hearing in order to protest. 1 This was granted but it resulted in an enthusiastic suffrage meeting. The "nineteen," who asserted that they spoke for 90 per cent. of unorganized women in Indiana, were represented by Mrs. Lucius B. Swift, Miss Minnie Bronson, secretary of the National Anti-Suffrage Association, and Charles McLean of Iowa, who was in its employ. Mrs. McCulloch, Meredith Nicholson, Mrs. Edward Franklin White, now president of the Council, former Mayor Charles A. Bookwalter and a number of others spoke for the bill.

The calendar of suffrage events in the Legislature of 1917 was as follows: On January 23 the bill for a constitutional convention passed the House by 87 ayes, 10 noes; on the 31st it passed the Senate by 34 ayes, 14 noes, and on February I was signed by Governor James P. Goodrich. On February 8 the Presidential-Municipal suffrage bill passed the Senate by 32 ayes, 16 noes. It also provided that women could vote for delegates to the constitutional convention, were eligible to election as delegates and could vote on the adoption of the proposed new constitution. On the 22nd it passed the House by 67 ayes, 24 noes, and was signed by the Governor. The Legislature also voted to submit a full suffrage amendment to the electors.

Although it was early apparent that these laws would be carried into the courts preparations were at once made by the women for registering. The Franchise League opened booths in the shopping districts in the cities and urged the women in the country to go to the court house and register when in town. They sent out women notaries with blanks to register the women.