f
Doctor of Laws was conferred on Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, president of
the National American Woman Suffrage Association and of the
International Woman Suffrage Alliance.

FOOTNOTES:

[212] The History is indebted for this chapter to Dr. Grace Raymond
Hebard, professor of Political Economy and Sociology in the State
University of Wyoming.

CHAPTER L.

WOMAN SUFFRAGE IN THE TERRITORIES OF THE UNITED STATES AND THE
PHILIPPINES.

ALASKA.[213]

When the bill was before Congress in 1912 to make Alaska a Territory
of the United States an amendment was added on motion of
Representative Frank W. Mondell of Wyoming to give its Legislature
full power to enfranchise women. This was accepted by the House
without objection. Afterwards the official board of the National
American Woman Suffrage Association gladly responded to the request of
Arthur G. Stroup of Sitka, one of the Territorial Representatives, who
intended to introduce a bill for the purpose, to send up some suitable
literature. The board also asked women in Seattle, former residents of
Alaska, to write to the members of the new Legislature.

Woman suffrage in Alaska possesses the unique record of being granted
without any solicitation whatever from the residents. It is not known
that a suffrage club ever existed in the Territory; it is quite
certain that prior to the convening of the first Territorial
Legislature in Juneau in 1913 no suffrage campaigning whatever had
been carried on, yet two members, coming from towns not less than
1,500 miles apart, brought drafts for an equal suffrage bill. House
Bill No. 2, "An Act to extend the elective franchise to the women in
the Territory of Alaska," was the first to pass both Houses--7
Senators and 15 Representatives--and the vote on it was unanimous,
Senator Elwood Brunner of Nome, the only member who had expressed
himself as unfavorable, having had the good sense or caution to absent
himself during roll call. This was also the first bill to be approved
by the Governor, J. F. A. Strong, on March 21, 1913, and the Act
became effective ninety days thereafter. It declared the elective
franchise extended to such women as had the qualifications required of
male electors.

The Alaska Code had permitted women to vote only at School elections.
The new law gave them the privilege of voting for the officers in
incorporated towns and cities; for members of the Territorial
Legislature and for Territorial Delegate to