at
if the women were allowed to vote for members of the
Constitutional Convention, it would be impossible to elect one
that would wipe out woman suffrage. It was therefore imperative
to deprive the women of their votes before the members of the
convention were chosen. A scheme was arranged for the purpose.
On the ground that she was a woman, the election officers at a
local election refused the vote of Mrs. Nevada Bloomer, a
saloon-keeper's wife, who was opposed to suffrage. _They accepted
the votes of all the other women._ She made a test case by
bringing suit against them. In the ordinary course of things, the
case would not have come up till after the election of the
constitutional convention. But cases for the restoration of
personal rights may be advanced on the docket, and Mrs. Bloomer's
ostensible object was the restoration of her personal rights,
though her real object was to deprive all women of theirs. Her
case was put forward on the docket and hurried to a decision.

The Supreme Court [George Turner and Wm. G. Langford] this time
pronounced the woman suffrage law unconstitutional on the ground
that _it was beyond the power of a Territorial Legislature to
enfranchise women_. The Organic Act of the Territory said that at
the first Territorial election persons with certain
qualifications should vote, and at subsequent elections _such
persons as the Territorial Legislature might enfranchise_. But
the court took the ground that in giving the Legislature the
right to regulate suffrage, Congress did not at the time have it
specifically in mind that they might enfranchise women, and that
therefore they could not do so.(!) The suffragists wanted to have
the case appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States, but
Mrs. Bloomer refused.

The women themselves being prevented from voting, their friends
were not able to overcome the combined "machines" of both
political parties, and the intense opposition of all the vicious
and disorderly elements, at that time very large on the Pacific
Coast. A convention opposed to equal suffrage was elected, and
framed a constitution excluding women. A friend of the present
writer talked with many of the members while the convention was
in session. He says almost every lawyer in that body
ackn