kota,
would be disqualified from voting under these special
enactments, even though this bill became a law at this very
session. Charters have been created with that provision
retained, and they would make this bill abortive and largely
inoperative. A still more objectionable feature, and one
deliberately inserted, is the clause debarring women from
the right to hold office. If the word "male" had been
stricken out of the code, and no other action taken, they
would have been eligible, and I believe there is a wide
feeling that many offices, particularly those connected with
penal and benevolent institutions, could be most
appropriately filled with women, but this clause practically
forbids their appointment. If women are good enough to vote
they are good enough to be voted for. If they are qualified
to choose officials, they are qualified to be chosen. I
don't say that I would approve this measure were it
otherwise worded, but I certainly would not indorse a bill
which thus keeps the word of promise to the ear and breaks
it to the hope, which deliberately and avowedly debars and
disqualifies women while assuming to exalt and honor them.
These objections are apart from the abstract right of women
to the ballot, but they show how necessary it is to approach
such a subject with deliberation. If women are to be
enfranchised, let it be done, not as a thirty days' wonder,
but as a merited reform resulting from mature reflection,
approved by the public conscience and sanctioned by the
enlightened judgment of the people.

[Signed:] GILBERT A. PIERCE, _Governor_.

An effort was promptly made to carry the measure over the
governor's veto, which failed by a vote of 18 to 26.

During the last session of the legislature a large public meeting
was held in Bismarck, at which many of the members spoke strongly
in favor of the woman suffrage amendment, the chief-justice and a
majority of his associates advocating the measure. Mrs. Gage, in
a letter from Dakota, said:

An acquaintance of mine, the owner of a green-house, sent
each of the members voting "aye" a buttonhole bouquet, a