e the Third District Court,
to test the validity of the statute conferring the elective franchise
upon the women of the Territory. A registrar of Salt Lake City refused
to place the names of women upon the list of voters, and Mrs. Florence
L. Westcott asked for a writ compelling him to administer the oath,
enter her name, etc. The case was called for argument Sept. 14, 1882,
Chief Justice James A. Hunter on the bench, and able lawyers were
employed on both sides of the question. The decision sustained the
Legislative Act of 1870 under which women voted. Associate Justice
Emerson agreed with Judge Hunter, and Associate Justice Twiss
acknowledged the validity of the law, but insisted that women should
be taxpayers to entitle them to the right. This test case decided all
others and women continued to vote until the passage of the
Edmunds-Tucker Law, in March, 1887. During this period women gained
much political experience in practical matters, and their association
with men acquainted with affairs of State, in council and on
committees gave them a still wider knowledge of the manipulation of
public affairs.

In September, 1882, the National W. S. A. held a conference in Omaha,
Neb., and Mrs. Wells and Mrs. Zina D. H. Young attended. Miss Anthony,
Mrs. May Wright Sewall, chairman of the Executive Committee, and many
other distinguished women were in attendance. Mrs. Wells, as
vice-president for Utah, presented an exhaustive report of the
suffrage work in the Territory, which was received with a great deal
of enthusiasm.

At the national convention in Washington the previous January the
proposed disfranchisement of Utah women by the Edmunds Bill had been
very fully discussed and a resolution adopted, that "the proposition
to disfranchise the women of Utah for no cause whatever is a cruel
display of the power which lies in might alone, and that this Congress
has no more right to disfranchise the women of Utah than the men of
Wyoming."[442] This sympathy was gratefully acknowledged by the women
of the Territory.

The suffrage women throughout the various States made vigorous
protests against the injustice of this pending measure. A committee
appointed at the convention in Washington, in the winter of 1887,
presented a memorial to the President of the United States requesting
him not to sign the bills, but to veto any measure for the
disfranchisement of the women of Utah.[443] Mrs. Belva A. Lockwood
made an able speech bef