ply the personal views of the editors, and a change of
management may cause a complete reversal of their attitude toward
woman suffrage.

[152] A reading of these chapters will show that the suffrage
societies have started many progressive movements and then turned them
over to other organizations of women, believing they would thrive
better if freed from the effects of the prejudice against woman
suffrage and everything connected with it.

[153] Notwithstanding these efforts, the very statutes which are
intended to be fair to women are continually found to be defective,
and whenever any doubt arises as to their construction the Common Law
must prevail, which in all cases is unjust to women. An example of
this kind will be found in the chapter on New York, showing that it
was held in 1901 that a wife's wages belonged to her husband, although
it was supposed that these had been secured to her beyond all question
by a special statute of 1860.

[154] For abstract of the Common Law in regard to women see History of
Woman Suffrage, Vol. III, p. 961.

[155] A few of the States were formed under the Spanish or French code
instead of the English Common Law, but neither was more favorable to
women.

[156] No mention is made of women postmasters as these are found in
all States. The first were appointed by President Grant during his
first term of office, 1868-1872.

[157] In the various States under the head of Education, Roman
Catholic colleges and universities are not considered, as they are
nowhere co-educational.

The public school statistics are taken from the reports for 1898-9 of
the U. S. Commissioner of Education.

CHAPTER XXV.

ALABAMA.[158]

Actual work for woman suffrage in Alabama began in 1890, at the time
the constitutional convention of Mississippi was in session. The
editor of the New Decatur _Advertiser_ opened his columns to all
matter on the question and thus aroused local interest, which in 1892
culminated in the formation in that town of the first suffrage club in
the State, with seven charter members. The women who thus faced a most
conservative public sentiment were Mesdames Harvey Lewis, F. E.
Jenkins, E. G. Robb, A. R. Rose, B. E. Moore, Lucy A. Gould and Ellen
Stephens Hildreth.

Before the close of the year a second club was formed in Verbena by
Miss Frances A. Griffin, who has since become noted as a public
speaker for this cause. Others were soon established through the
effor