USA > Wyoming > History of Wyoming, Volume I > Part 23
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"When this jury had been empaneled, sworn and charged, the excitement in Laramie was intense, and the material facts, together with the judge's charge were telegraphed all over the world by the associated press reporters who watched every step of the novel scene with intense interest."
At the opening of the court, the jury being in their seats, the judge addressed them as "ladies and gentlemen of the grand jury." He assured them there was no impropriety or illegality in women serving as jurors and that they would receive the full consideration and protection of the court. As the judge finished, Stephen W. Downey, prosecuting attorney, arose and moved to quash the jury panel on the ground that said panel was not composed of "male citizens" as required by law. The court overruled this motion, Associate Justice Kingman concurring. In fact the written opinion of Chief Justice Howe had been given to Mr. Downey previous to the assembling of the court. This grand jury was in session three weeks and investigated many cases including murders, cattle stealing, illegal branding, etc. Whenever a true bill was returned it commenced with these words, "We, good and lawful male and female jurors, on oath do say."
THE PETIT JURY
The petit jury, empaneled after the grand jury, consisted of six women and six men. The women were: Mrs. Retta J. Burnham, wife of a contractor ; Miss Nellie Hazen, a school teacher ; Miss Lizzie A. Spooner, sister of a hotel keeper ; Mrs. Mary Wilcox, wife of a merchant ; Mrs J. H. Hayford, wife of an editor ; Mrs. J. N. Hartsough, wife of the Methodist minister. A woman bailiff, Mrs. Mary Boies, was appointed to attend to this jury, being the first woman bailiff known to American history. The first case was a murder trial, and as no decision was reached before night, the jury was taken to the Union Pacific Hotel and two rooms engaged. one for the men and one for the women, a man bailiff being on duty as guard of the men. As an incident of their deliberations, the minister's wife asked the jurors to kneel down with her in prayer "that they might ask the aid of the Great Court above in arriving at a just decision."
After several ballots in the murder case with varying results the jury finally agreed on a verdict of manslaughter. During the term many civil and criminal cases were tried, and when it was over, the universal opinion of lawyers and all good citizens, was, that the women showed ability, good sense and practical judg- ment in their decisions and that the ends of justice were attained.
Mrs. Sarah W. Pease, one of the grand jurors, wrote an interesting account of their jury experiences in the Wyoming Historial Collections of 1897. Of the pub- licity they enjoyed or suffered, she says :
"The news was wired far and near, and every paper in the country made favorable or unfavorable comment, usually the latter. In due time letters and telegrams of inquiry came pouring in. Newspaper correspondents came flocking to the town from all parts of the country, as well as special artists from leading illustrated periodicals. We were constantly importuned to sit for our pictures in a body, but we steadfastly refused, although great pressure was brought to bear by court officials. The jury was obliged to go to the court room once each day and I remember we went closely veiled fearing that special artists would make hasty sketches of us. Of course we were caricatured in the most hideous manner. Some
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of us were represented as holding babies in our laps, and a threadbare couplet appeared in many newspapers and still has a place in the guide books,
'Baby, baby, don't get in a fury, Your mamma's gone to sit on the jury.'"
One woman, she says gave them much irritation because she persisted in knit- ting while in the jury box. Red Cross work was not then the vogue. During three successive terms women were called to serve on juries. When Judge Howe re- signed, however, the practice was discontinued by his successor who interpreted the law to apply only to "male citizens."
THE FIRST WOMAN JUSTICE
Mrs. Esther Morris was one of the earliest and most noted of Wyoming's pioneer women. She came from Illinois to Wyoming in 1869 and joined her husband and three sons at South Pass, then a populous gold mining settlement. W. H. Bright, the author of the bill giving equal suffrage to women, was a resident of that camp, and as Mrs. Morris was a warm advocate of woman's rights, it is thought she may have influenced Mr. Bright in proposing the measure. There is no evidence to show that she had anything to do with the passage of the bill, but shortly after the Legislature adjourned she was appointed justice of the peace by Edwin M. Lee, acting governor of the territory, and filled the position with great credit to herself and to the satisfaction of the people of South Pass. She held court in a lively mining camp and was obliged to hear and decide many exciting and difficult cases, but in no case were her judgments and decisions over- ruled. When her term was finished The South Pass News of December 12, 1870, made the following comment :
"Mrs. Justice Esther Morris retires from her judicial duties today. She has filled the position with great credit to herself and secured the good opinion of all with whom she transacted any official business."
An article in the Chicago Tribune of June 17, 1895, referring to her selection as one of the delegates to the Republican National Convention held at Cleveland, Ohio, says: "Her career is in some respects remarkable, especially as one of the early pioneers of Illinois and Wyoming. * Few women of any period have been endowed with greater gifts than Esther Morris. Her originality, wit and rare powers of conversation would have given her a conspicuous position in any society."
Mrs. Morris was a woman of great force of character, natural ability and inde- pendent convictions. In her girlhood days in Illinois she was an ardent anti- slavery worker. Her closing years were spent at Cheyenne with her son, Hon. Robert M. Morris, author of Wyoming Historical Collections. She died in April, 1902, at the age of 90 years, having spent a serene, old age with "honor, love, obedience and troops of friends."
FOR UNITED STATES SENATOR
Although at a later date, the fact should be mentioned in this connection that Wyoming made the first nomination for United States Senator by legislative
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caucus, that was ever made in this country. This honor fell to Mrs. I. S. Bartlett, whose interesting biography appears in another part of this history. She was the unanimous choice of the people's party representatives of the legislative session of 1893, when a deadlock prevented the election of any senator, but Mrs. Bartlett was so much admired and respected by all parties that she was clected to the position of chief enrolling clerk of the same legislature.
IN THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION
The question of woman suffrage had an important place in the constitutional convention which convened at Cheyenne, September 2, 1889, for the purpose of forming a constitution to be submitted to Congress. The constitution as then framed, under the head of suffrage, included this provision :
"Sec. 1. The right of the citizens of the State of Wyoming to vote and hold office shall not be denied or abridged on account of sex. Both male and female citizens of this state shall equally enjoy all civil, political and religious rights and privileges."
The question of submitting this as a separate proposition to be voted upon gave rise to a very interesting debate in the convention and very able speeches were made by George W. Baxter, A. C. Campbell, M. C. Brown, Henry A. Coffeen, John W. Hoyt, Charles H. Burrit, C. W. Holden and A. B. Conaway. The propo- sition for a separate submission of this clause was based on the idea that Congress might refuse to admit the state with such a provision and it might thus cause the rejecting of statehood. Such a radical and far reaching proposition had never been put up to Congress and the desire for statehood was so strong and insistent that a few were willing to surrender their convictions on suffrage in order to achieve a sure admission.
In the end, however, the convention overwhelmingly voted down the separation of the question and incorporated woman suffrage as a part of the constitution, regardless of whether Congress liked it, or not. As one speaker said in the debate: "Rather than surrender that right we will remain in a territorial condition through the endless cycles of time."
However, their fears were soon dispelled. Through the able and untiring efforts of our representative in Congress, Judge J. M. Carey, assisted by some of the ablest members of the house and senate the admission bill was passed and signed by the President on July 10, 1890.
NOTES AND COMMENTS
Col. W. H. Bright, who was president of the territorial council when he intro- duced the woman suffrage bill, came to Wyoming from Washington, D. C., his paternal home. He was a man of intelligence, broad minded, and independent in his convictions. Mr. Bright was a democrat and he reasoned that if ignorant negroes were allowed to vote, women were certainly entitled to the privilege. Before the adjournment of the session, the Council unanimously passed the following resolution commending his service as their presiding officer :
"Resolved, That the Council does hereby recognize in Honorable W. H. Bright, our president, an able, efficient and unpartial officer, and that the thanks of the
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members of this Council are hereby extended to that gentleman, for the ability and impartiality with which he has presided over the deliberations of this session."
The first woman who voted in Wyoming according to Miss Hebard's interesting account in the Journal of American History, was Mrs. Eliza A. Swain, a lady seventy years of age, living in Laramie. The election was on September 6, 1870.
"Putting on a clean, fresh apron, she walked to the polls early in the morning carrying a little bucket for yeast to be bought at the baker's shop on her return home." She put in her vote and went about her business as if it was a natural part of her domestic duties. Her picture is given in Miss Hebard's article.
Some of the highest offices in the state have been held by women, such as mem- bers of legislatures, state superintendents of public instruction, county superintend- ents of schools, county treasurers and clerks, trustees of the State University, judges of elections, delegates to state and national conventions, etc.
When Governor Warren set the date for holding the Constitutional Convention preparatory to statehood, a convention of the women of the territory was held at Cheyenne to demonstrate their interest in the government of the state and insist on the preservation of their right of suffrage. This convention was unanimous and enthusiastic. Mrs. Amelia Post was elected chairman and a committee on resolutions was appointed consisting of Mrs. Hale, widow of the late governor, Mrs. Morgan, wife of the territorial secretary and Grace Raymond Hebard. The views expressed in the resolutions were practically adopted by the men.
BILL NYE'S HUMOROUS REPORT
The story of the adoption of woman suffrage in Wyoming would not be com- plete without giving, Bill Nye's version of the legislative discussion of the question. In answer to a question from a well known editor of South Dakota as to what he knew of the legislative proceedings on the bill, Nye reproduces some imaginary speeches made during its discussion in the legislature. Mr. Bigsby, a railroad man, he reports as making the following speech :
"Gentlemen, this is a pretty important move. It's a kind of wild train on a single track, and we've got to keep our eye peeled or we'll get into the ditch. It's a new conductor making his first run. He don't know the stations yet, and he feels as if there were a spotter in every coach besides. Female suffrage changes the management of the whole line, and may put the entire outfit in the hands of a receiver in two years. We can't tell when Wyoming Territory may be side-tracked with a lot of female conductors and superintendents and a posse of giddy girls at the brakes.
"I tell you we want to consider this pretty thorough. Of course, we members get our time check at the close of the term, and we don't care much, but if the young territory gets into a hot box, or civilization has to wait a few years because we get a flat wheel, and thus block the track, or if by our foolishness we telescope some other territory, folks will point us out and say, 'there's where the difficulty is.' We sent a choice aggregation of railroad men and miners and cattle men down there to Cheyenne, thinking we had a carload of statesmen for to work up this thing, and here we are without airy law or airy gospel that we can lay our jaw to in the whole domain. However, Mr. Speaker, I claim that I've got my orders and I shall pull out in favor of the move. If you boys will couple onto our
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train, I am moderately certain that we will make no mistake. I regard it as a pro- motion when I go from the cattle train of male ward politics to take charge of a train with a parlor car and ladies belonging to the manifest." (Applause.)
The next speech was made by Unusual Barnes, owner of Bar G brand horse ranch and the crop mottle and key Q monkey-wrench brand cattle ranch on the Upper Chugwater. He said: "Mr. Chairman, or Speaker, or whatever you call yourself, I can cut out a steer or put my red-hot monogram on a maverick the darkest night that ever blew, but I'm poorly put up to paralyze the eager throng with matchless eloquence. I tell you, talk is inexpensive, anyhow. It is rum and hired help that costs money. I agree with the chair that we want to be familiar with the range before we stampede and go wild like a lot of Texas cattle just off the trail, traveling 100 miles a day and filling their pelts with pizen weed and other peculiar vegetables. We want to consider what we're about and act with some judgment. When we turn this maverick over to the governor to be branded, we want to know that we are corralling the right animal. You can't lariat a broncho mule with a morning glory vine. Most always, and after we've run this bill into the chute and twisted its tail a few times, we might want to pay two or three good men to help us let loose of it. However, I shall vote for it as it is, and take the chances. Passing a bill is like buying a brand of cattle on the range, anyhow. You may tally ahead, and you may get everlastingly left with a little withered bunch of Texas frames that there ain't no more hopes of fattening than there would be of putting flesh on a railroad bridge."
The Legislature now took a recess, and after a little quiet talk at Col. Luke Murrin's place, reassembled to listen to a brief speech by Buck Bramel, a pros- pector, who discovered the Pauper's Dream gold mine. Buck said: "Mr. Cheers- man, I don't know what kind of a fist the women will make of politics, but I'm prepared to invest with surface indications. The law may develop a true fissure vein of prosperity and progress, or a heart-breaking slide of the mountain. We cannot tell till we go down on it. All we can do is to prospect around and drift and develop and comply with the United States laws in such cases made and provided. Then two years more will show whether we've got 'mineral in place' or not. If it works, all right, the next shift tlrat comes to the legislature can drift and stope and stump and timber the blamed measure so as to make a good investment of it for future history. We don't expect to declare a dividend the first year. It'll take time to show what there is in it. My opinion is that women can give this territory a boom that will make her the bonanza of all creation.
"We've got mighty pretty blossom rock already in the intelligence and brains of our women ; let us be the means of her advancement and thus shame the old and mossy civilization of other lands. Thus in time we may be able to send missionaries to New England. I cannot think of anything more enjoyable than that would be. I was in California years ago, up in the hills, looking for a place. and I ran into a camp in a gulch there, where the soft foot-fall of women had never mashed the violet or squoze the fragrance from the wild columbine. At first the boys thought it was real nice. Everything was so quiet and life was like a dream. Men wore their whiskers flowing, with burdock burrs in them. They got down at the heel. They got so depraved that they neglected their manicure sets for days at a time and killed each other thoughtlessly at times. They also wore their clothes a long time without shame. They also bet their dust foolishly.
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and the rum pathologist of the Little Nasal Dye Works got the wages of the whole crew. Bye and bye Yankee school marms and their brothers came up here, and everything was lovely ; the boys braced up and had some style about 'em. It was a big stroke of good luck to the camp.
"I believe that the mother of a statesman is better calculated to vote than a man that can't read or write. I may be a little peculiar but I think that when a woman has marched a band of hostile boys all the way up to manhood and give 'em a good start and made good citizens out of 'em, with this wicked world to buck agin all the time, she can vote all day, so far as I'm concerned, in preference to the man who don't know whether Michigan is in Missouri or St. Louis. I am in favor of making the location and going ahead with our assessment work, and I'll bet my pile that there hain't been a measure passed by our august body this winter that will show more mineral on the dump in five years than this one."
The closing speech was made by Elias Kilgore, a retired stage driver, he also favored the bill, and spoke as follows :
"Mr. Speaker-The bill that's before us, it strikes me, is where the road forks. One is the old guv'ment road that has been the style for a good while, and the other is the cut-off. It's a new road but with a little work on it, I reckon it's going to be the best road. You men that opposes the bill has got ezzication-some of you -- some of you ain't. You that has it got it at your mother's knee. Second, the more Godlike we get, gentlemen, the more rights we will give women. The closter you get to the cannibals the more apt a woman is to do chores and get choked for her opinions. I don't say that a woman has got to vote because she has the right, no more than our local vigilance committee has got to hang the member from Sweetwater County because it has a right to, but it is a good, whole- some brake on society in case you bust a hold-back or tear off a harness strap when you are on a steep grade. The member from Sweetwater County says we ort to restrik the vote privilege instead of enlarging it. He goes on to say that too many folks is already 'ntiled to vote. That may be. Too many maudlin drunkards that thinks with fungus growth and reasons with a little fatty degeneration which they calls brains till they runs against an autopsy, too many folks with no voting quali- fication but talk and trowsiz, is allowed to vote, not only at the polls, but to even represent a big and beautiful county like Sweetwater in the Legislature.
"So we are to restrik the vote, I admit, in that direction and enlarge it in the direction of decency and sense. Mr. Speaker, men is too much stuck on them- selves. Becuz they was made first, they seem to be checked too high. The fact is that God made the muskeeter and bedbug before he made man. He also made the mud-turtle, the jackass and baboon. When he had all the experience he wanted in creating, he made man. Then he made woman. He done a good job. She suits me. She fooled herself once, but why was it? It was Monday. She had a picked-up dinner. Adam wanted something to finish off with. Eve suggested a cottage pudding. 'Oh, blow your cottage pudding,' says Ad. 'How would you like a little currant jell?' says she. 'No currant jell, if you will excuse me,' says Ad. 'Well, say a saucerful of "tipsy parson," with a little coffee and a Rhode Island pudding ?' 'Don't talk to me about Rhode Island gravies,' says Ad. 'You make me tired. Wash-day here, is worse than the fodder we had at the Gem City house on our wedding tower. I haven't had a thing to eat yet that was fit to feed to a shingle mill. Give me a fillet of elephant's veal. Kill that little fat
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elephant that eats the blackberries nights. Fix up a little Roman salad,' he said, 'and put a quart of Royal Berton see on ice for me. I will take a little plum duff and one of those apples that the Lord told us not to pick. Do that for next wash-day, Evie,' says Ad, 'and draw on me.'
"These was Adam's words as regular as if he had been reported, I reckon, and that's how sin come into the world. That's why man earns his bread by the sweat of his brow, and the tooth of the serpent bruises the woman's heel. Eve rustled around the ranch to get a little fresh fruit for Ad, and lo! the Deluge and Crucifixion and the Revelation and the Rebellion has growed out of it.
"Proud man, with nothing but an appetite and side-whiskers, lays out to own the earth because Eve overdrawed her account in order to please him. And now, because man claims he was created first and did not sin to amount to anything, he thinks that he has got the brains of the civilized world and practically owns the town.
"I talk without prejudice, Mr. Speaker, because I have no wife. I don't expect to have any. I have had one. She is in heaven now. She belonged there before I married her, but for some reason that I can't find out she was thrown in my way for a few years, and that recollection puts a lump in my throat yet as I stand here. I imposed on her because she had been taught to obey her husband, no matter how much of a dam phool he might be. That was Laura's idea of Christianity. She is dead now. I drive the stage and think. God help the feller that has to think when he's got nothing to think of but an angel in the sky that he ain't got no claim on.
"I've been held up four times, and I drove right along past the road agents. Drove rather slow, hoping that they'd shoot, but they seemed kind of rattled, and so waited for the next stage.
"It's d-d funny to me that woman who suffers most in order that man may come into the world, the one, Mr. Speaker, that is first to find and last to forsake Him, first to hush the cry of a baby Savior in a Jim Crow livery stable in Bethle- hem and last to leave the cross, first at the sepulchre and last to doubt the Lord. should be interested with the souls and bodies of generations and yet not know enough to vote." (Applause.)
CHAPTER XIV
STATE GOVERNMENT INAUGURATED
FIRST POLITICAL CONVENTIONS-FIRST STATE ELECTION -- FIRST STATE LEGISLATURE -ELECTION OF UNITED STATES SENATORS-RESIGNATION OF GOVERNOR WARREN -BARBER'S ADMINISTRATION-POLITICAL CAMPAIGN OF 1892-A POLITICAL DIS- PUTE-OSBORNE TAKES POSSESSION OF THE GOVERNOR'S OFFICE-THE CARBON COUNTY CASE-TIIE MOORE : PARDON-OSBORNE'S ADMINISTRATION-SECOND LEGISLATURE-THE STATE SEAL-THE SENATORIAL DEADLOCK-COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION-ELECTION OF 1894.
Soon after the passage of the bill by Congress, admitting Wyoming into the Union, Governor Francis E. Warren, then governor of the territory, issued a proc- lamation calling an election for state officers on Thursday, September 11, 1890, and politicians began to gird on their armor for the fray. Republican and democratic conventions were held in Cheyenne on the 11th of August.
The republican convention nominated Francis E. Warren for governor ; Amos W. Barber, secretary of state ; Charles W. Burdick, auditor of state; Otto Gramm, treasurer of state; Stephen T. Farwell, superintendent of public instruction ; Willis Van Devanter, Herman V. S. Groesbeck and Asbury B. Conaway, justices of the Supreme Court ; Clarence D. Clark, representative in Congress.
George W. Baxter was nominated for governor by the democratic convention ; John S. Harper, secretary of state; George S. Campbell, auditor of state; Isaac C. Miller, treasurer of state; Anthony V. Quinn, superintendent of public in- struction : Samuel T. Corn, P. Gad Bryan and Henry S. Elliott, justices of the Supreme Court ; George T. Beck, representative in Congress.
Both conventions also nominated judges for the three judicial districts, viz. : Republican-Richard H. Scott, of Crook County, First District : John W. Blake, of Albany County, Second District ; Jesse Knight, of Uinta County, Third Dis- trict. Democratic-Frederick H. Harvey, of Converse County, First District ; Micah C. Saufley, of Albany County, Second District ; Douglas A. Preston, of Fremont County, Third District.
The campaign that followed the nomination of these tickets was enlivened by a series of joint debates between George W. Baxter, the democratic candidate for governor, and Joseph M. Carey, former delegate in Congress. Baxter had challenged Governor Warren to discuss the issues of the campaign in joint debate, but the governor's health was in such a state that his friends deemed it inadvisable for him to accept the challenge, and Mr. Carey volunteered to become his substi- tute. At the election the entire republican ticket was victorious. For governor, Warren received 8,879 votes and Baxter received 7,153. The other candidates
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