14 noes. Before it was taken in the House a
conference was held in the office of the Governor at the Capitol
attended by the following workers for the bill: Senator Isaac Barth,
National Committeeman; Charles A. Spiess, Holm O. Bursum, Supreme
Justice Clarence J. Roberts, Charles Springer, Mrs. Kellam, Mrs.
Walter, Mrs. Hughey, chairman of the State suffrage legislative
committee; Mrs. Kate Hall, president of the Santa Fe branch of the
Congressional Union; Mrs. N. B. Laughlin and Mrs. Lindsey.

The leaders of the two political parties admitted that they could not
control their legislators and tried to hold the Spanish-Americans
responsible. The House voted on the bill March 7, after a loud,
disorderly and acrimonious debate, 26 noes, 21 ayes. The Speaker
afterwards explained his affirmative vote by saying that he thought it
was to submit the question to the electors! Of the 29 Republican
members 10 voted for the bill; of the 18 Democratic members, 11 voted
for it.

SUFFRAGE. The convention to prepare a constitution for statehood,
which met in 1910, was the battle ground for School suffrage for
women. The question was very seriously debated in the Elective
Franchise Committee, which many times voted it down only to renew it
upon appeal to do so. Mrs. S. F. Culberson, then county school
superintendent in Roosevelt county, argued the matter before the
committee, and its chairman, Nestor Montoya, cast the deciding vote
for it to come before the convention. Both Democrats and Republicans
rallied to its support but Jose D. Sena, Clerk of the Supreme Court, a
member of the convention, strenuously opposed it and finally carried
it back to be caucused upon by the Republican majority. After a stormy
caucus it was returned to the convention and passed. The president of
the convention, Charles A. Spiess, spoke urgently in Committee of the
Whole to save women's eligibility to the county superintendency from
being eliminated. The clause gave women the right to vote for school
trustees, on the issuing of bonds and in the local administration of
public schools but not for county or State superintendents. It
provided that "if a majority of the qualified voters of any school
district shall, not less than thirty days before any school election,
present a petition to the county commissioners against woman suffrage
in that district it shall be suspended and only renewed by a petition
of the majority!"

No effort could obtain any larger