I., of this history,
appears this sentence: "To Clarina Howard Nichols[480] the women
of Kansas are indebted for many civil rights which they have as
yet been too apathetic to exercise." Uncomplimentary as this
statement is, I must admit its truthfulness as applied to a large
majority of our women of culture and leisure, those who should
have availed themselves of the privileges already theirs and
labored for what the devotion of Mrs. Nichols made attainable.
They have neither done this, nor tried to enlighten their less
favored sisters throughout the State, the great mass of whom are
obliged to exert every energy of body and mind to furnish food,
clothes and shelter for themselves and children. Probably fully
four-fifths of the women of Kansas never have heard of Clarina
Howard Nichols; while a much larger number do know that our laws
favor women more than those of other States, and largely avail
themselves of the school ballot. The readiness with which the
rank and file of our women assent to the truth when it is
presented to them, indicates that their inaction results not so
much from apathy and indifference as from a lack of means and
opportunity. Among all the members of all the woman suffrage
societies in Central Kansas, I know of but just one woman of
leisure--one who is not obliged to make a personal sacrifice of
some kind each time she attends a meeting or pays a dollar into
the treasury. Section 6, Article XV., of the constitution of
Kansas reads:

The legislature shall provide for the protection of the
rights of women, in acquiring and possessing property, real,
personal, and mixed, separate and apart from her husband;
and shall also provide for their equal rights in the
possession of their children. In accordance with the true
spirit of this section, our statute provides that the law of
descents and distributions as regards the property of either
husband or wife is the same; and the interests of one in the
property of the other are the same with each; and that the
common-law principles of estates of dower, and by courtesy
are abolished.[481]

[Illustration: "The world needs women who do their own thinking.
Cordially yours, Helen M. Gougar"]

The rights of husband and w