The average monthly salary of the men is $32.18; of the women, $26.69.

* * * * *

The State Federation of Women's Clubs was organized in 1897 and has a
membership of fifteen societies.

Women have never actively participated in public campaigns except in
local politics where the liquor question has been the paramount issue.
Miss Belle Kearney is a temperance lecturer of national reputation,
and a pronounced advocate of woman suffrage.

FOOTNOTES:

[347] The History is indebted for this chapter to Mrs. Hala Hammond
Butt of Clarksdale, president of the State Woman Suffrage Association
and editor of the _Challenge_, a county paper.

[348] Officers elected: President, Mrs. Hala Hammond Butt;
vice-president, Mrs. Fannie Clark; corresponding secretary, Mrs.
Harriet B. Kells; recording secretary, Mrs. Rebecca Roby; treasurer,
Miss Mabel Pugh. Other officers have been Miss Belle Kearney and
Mesdames Nellie Nugent, Charlotte L. Pitman and Pauline Alston Clark.

[349] Any municipality of 300 or more inhabitants may be declared a
"separate school district" by an ordinance of the mayor or board of
aldermen if it maintain a free public school at least seven months in
each year. Four months is the ordinary public term, the additional
three months' school being supported by special taxation. Thus as soon
as a woman has to pay a special tax she is deprived of a vote.

CHAPTER XLIX.

MISSOURI.[350]

The movement toward equal suffrage in Missouri must always recognize
as its founder Mrs. Virginia L. Minor. She was a thorough believer in
the right of woman to the franchise, and at the November election of
1872 offered her own vote under the provisions of the Fourteenth
Amendment to the Federal Constitution. It was refused; she brought
suit against the inspectors and carried her case to the Supreme Court
of the United States, where it was argued with great ability by her
husband, Francis Minor, but an adverse decision was rendered.[351]

The first suffrage association in the State was organized at St. Louis
in the winter of 1867. Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Miss Susan B.
Anthony lectured under its auspices at Library Hall in the autumn of
that year, and a reception was given them in the parlors of the
Southern Hotel. For many years meetings were held with more or less
regularity, Mrs. Minor was continued as president and some legislative
work was attempted.

On Feb. 8, 9, 1892, a