he convention met in the court-house of Albert Lea, October
9, 10. On the first evening Mrs. Chapman Catt was the speaker, her
theme being A True Democracy. The Rev. Ida C. Hultin of Illinois
lectured on The Crowning Race. Miss Laura A. Gregg and Miss Helen L.
Kimber, both of Kansas, national organizers, gave reports of county
conventions conducted by them throughout Minnesota, with the
assistance of Mrs. Evelyn H. Belden, president of the Iowa Equal
Suffrage Association. The records showed ninety-eight suffrage
meetings altogether to have been held during the year.

In 1900 the convention took place at Stillwater, October 11, 12. The
officers elected were: President, Mrs. Maude C. Stockwell;
vice-president, Mrs. Jennie E. Brown; corresponding secretary, Miss
Delia O'Malley; recording secretary, Mrs. Maria B. Bryant; treasurer,
Dr. Margaret Koch; auditors, Sanford Niles and Mrs. Estelle Way;
chairman executive committee, Mrs. Martha J. Thompson.[341]

Judge J. B. and Mrs. Sarah Burger Stearns, C. W. and Mrs. Martha A.
Dorsett have been among the oldest and most valued suffrage workers
in the State. Miss Martha Scott Anderson, on the staff of the
Minneapolis _Journal_, gives efficient help to the cause. Three
presidents of the State W. C. T. U., Mesdames Harriet A. Hobart,
Susanna M. D. Fry and Bessie Laythe Scoville have been noted as
advocates of equal rights.[342]

LEGISLATIVE ACTION AND LAWS: In February, 1891, at the request of Mrs.
Julia B. Nelson, president, and Mrs. A. T. Anderson, chairman of the
executive committee of the State association, S. A. Stockwell
introduced in the House a bill conferring Municipal Suffrage upon
women. Mrs. Nelson spent several weeks at the capital looking after
the petitions which came from all parts of the State, interviewing
members of the Legislature, distributing literature and trying to get
the bill out of the hands of the Committee on Elections, to which it
had been referred. After repeated postponements a hearing finally was
granted, at which she made a strong plea and showed the good results
of woman suffrage in Kansas and Wyoming. The bill was indefinitely
postponed in Committee of the Whole, by a vote of 52 yeas, 40 nays.

Among the leaflets placed on the desk of each member was one
especially prepared by Mrs. Nelson, entitled Points on Municipal
Suffrage. One of its twelve points was this: "If the Legislature has
the power to restrict suffrage it certainly has the right