tory is indebted for this chapter to Miss Flora Dunlap,
president of the State Equal Suffrage Association 1913-1915 and
chairman of the League of Women Voters.

[51] Space is given to this report because it is a fair illustration
of the conditions under which woman suffrage amendments were defeated
again and again in different States.

CHAPTER XV.

KANSAS.[52]

Kansas was not yet a State when in 1859 twenty-five of her
justice-loving men and women met and formed the first association to
gain political freedom for women, and the liberty lighting torch
kindled then was kept aflame by organization for fifty-three years
before the women received equal political rights with the men in 1912.
A State Equal Suffrage Association was formed in 1884 and thereafter
annual conventions were held.

During 1901 Miss Helen Kimber, president of the association, travelled
through fifteen counties and held twenty-five meetings. She had
obtained for the national suffrage bazaar held in New York in
December, 1900, besides many smaller donations, a car load of flour
from the Kansas Millers' Association and two hundred pounds of butter
from the Continental Creamery Company of Topeka. She was re-elected
president at the convention held in McPherson, Nov. 7, 8, and the
following year visited more than half the counties, forming
organizations where they did not already exist. The attempt made in
the Legislature through the influence of the liquor interests to
deprive women of their Municipal suffrage, possessed since 1887,
brought more of them to realize its value and at the spring election
more than ever before were elected on school boards, for which women
could vote.

The convention of 1902 was held in Topeka October 14-15 and Miss
Kimber was re-elected; Mrs. John B. Sims, secretary. Several thousand
people listened to the inspiring addresses of Mrs. Carrie Chapman
Catt, president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association,
and the senior editor of the _Woman's Journal_, Henry B. Blackwell.
Headquarters were established in Topeka. Petitions for Presidential
suffrage with about 32,000 signatures had been secured to be presented
to the Legislature of 1903. There was an increased vote of women at
the spring election and forty-two were elected as county officers, for
whom only men could vote.

The State convention of 1903 was held in Abilene December 8-9 and Miss
Kimber was again re-elected. She reported suffrage meeting