Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 6.djvu/191

 n Vigo county, of which Terre Haute is the county seat, 12,000 registered, more than the average number of men who usually voted at elections. In all parts of the State the registration of women was very large and the women were studying political questions and showing much interest in their new duties.

Meanwhile the action of the Legislature was taken into the courts. On June 25 Judge W. W. Thornton of the Marion County (Indianapolis) Superior Court gave a decision that the Legislature had no authority to call for an election of delegates to a constitutional convention and no right to grant to women the privilege of voting for such delegates or any constitution which might be submitted to the voters. The case was at once appealed to the State Supreme Court, which on July 13 sustained the decision. Chief Justice Erwin wrote the opinion and Justices Spencer, Harvey and Myers concurred. Justice M. B. Lairy filed a dissenting opinion. There was a wide difference of opinion among the lawyers of the State.

This decision did not affect the limited suffrage law, which gave women the right to vote for (1) Presidential electors; (2) all State officers not expressly named in the constitution, including Attorney General and Judges of the Appellate, Superior, Criminal, Probate and Juvenile Courts; (3) all city, township and county officers not named in the constitution. The law was referred to as nine-tenths suffrage.

Action was brought in the Superior Court of Marion county for a decision on this law. The Court gave an adverse decision but it embraced definitely only the Municipal suffrage. On October 26 the Supreme Court upheld this decision concerning Municipal suffrage and implied that the entire Act was invalid. The counsel for the suffragists, including some of the foremost law-