se of the exposition they brought
back $2,800, which they turned into the State treasury, and $3,000
worth of furniture, which they presented to various State
institutions.

In 1894 there was an exciting contest over removing the location of
the permanent capital and some fear that Helena would lose it. A
number of her leading women, in a special car provided by the Northern
Pacific R. R., visited the prominent towns in Eastern Montana,
speaking and working in the interest of their city and undoubtedly
gaining many votes for Helena, which was selected instead of the
rival, Anaconda.

In 1896 Mrs. Haskell was made a delegate to the Populist convention of
Lewis and Clarke County, which met in Helena, and also to the Populist
State and National Conventions. She took a prominent part in their
proceedings, and was instrumental in securing a woman suffrage plank
in the Populist State platform after a hard fight on the floor of the
convention. At the Populist convention in St. Louis that year she was
chosen a member of the National Committee.

In the autumn of 1900 a number of prominent women of Helena appeared
as representatives of the suffragists before the Lewis and Clarke
County Conventions, and before the State conventions--Republican,
Democrat and Populist--asking that they insert a plank in their
platforms recommending the submission of the question of woman
suffrage to the voters. Only the Populists adopted it. The ladies also
attended the State conventions of the three parties with the same
resolution; but the Populists alone indorsed it, "demanding" suffrage
for women.

One of the important factors in this movement is the Woman's Relief
Corps, an organization which has grown in strength during the last
decade and is making its members staunch patriots and woman
suffragists. It has had an educative influence equal to that of the W.
C. T. U. but on different lines. Women are actively identified with
lodges and clubs, many of the latter being members of the General
Federation of Women's Clubs.

FOOTNOTES:

[354] The History is indebted for this chapter to Mrs. Mary Long
Alderson of Helena, one of the first officers of the State Woman
Suffrage Association.

[355] Officers elected: President, Mrs. Harriet P. Sanders;
vice-president, Mrs. Martha Rolfe Plassman; corresponding secretary,
Mrs. Delia A. Kellogg; recording secretary, Mrs. Mary Long Alderson;
treasurer, Dr. Mary B. Atwater; auditors, Mrs. Martha E.