ent;
now this is a feature of all, and 161 are regularly publishing
suffrage matter furnished by the State press bureau.

FOOTNOTES:

[237] The History is indebted for this chapter to Mrs. Mary E. Holmes
of Chicago, who has been officially connected with the State Equal
Suffrage Association since 1884.

[238] State conventions have been held as follows: Watseka, 1884;
Geneseo, 1885; Sandwich, 1886; Galva, 1887; Rockford, 1888; Joliet,
1889; Moline, 1890; Kewanee, 1891; Aurora, 1892; Chicago (World's
Fair), 1893; Danville, 1894; Decatur, 1895; Harvey, 1896; Waukegan,
1897; Springfield, 1898; Barry, 1899. The twenty-seventh annual
meeting took place in Edgewater, Oct. 11, 12, 1900.

[239] Among the officers for whom the Legislature has the power to
allow women to vote are Presidential electors, members of the State
Board of Equalization, clerk of the Appellate Court, county collector,
county surveyor, members of the Board of Assessors, sanitary district
trustees, members of the Board of Review, all officers of cities,
villages and towns (except police magistrates), supervisor, town
clerk, assessor, collector and highway commissioner.

The Legislature has power also to permit women to vote on general
questions submitted to the electors, besides voting in all annual and
special town meetings.

[240] During these years various suffrage bills were introduced by
other organizations. The school board of Winnetka had one to give
women a right to vote on all matters relating to schools; the W. C. T.
U. one for a constitutional amendment; and members of the Legislature
occasionally on their own responsibility introduced bills.

[241] In 1891 an anti-suffrage petition, signed by twelve persons,
aroused some interest on account of its novelty. In later Legislatures
their petitions do not seem to have appeared, but some of those twelve
signers can be found composing the Chicago Anti Suffrage Society of
the present day.

[242] In April, 1891, fifteen women of Lombard voted at the municipal
election under a special charter which gave the franchise to citizens
over twenty-one years of age. The judges were about to refuse the
votes, but Miss Ellen A. Martin, of the law firm of Perry & Martin in
Chicago, argued the legal points so conclusively that they were
accepted. No one has contested that election, and the women have
established their right to vote.

[243] Although Dr. Smith was defeated she was really the first woman