f the Legislative Committee and no measure ever had more careful and
persistent "mothering" than she gave this one, watching over it for
months. The bill passed the House the middle of February by the
magnificent vote of 73 to 24 in the presence of an audience of
applauding women that filled the galleries. In the Senate the bill
went to the Committee on Privileges and Elections, which granted a
hearing on February 15. After a luncheon with enthusiastic speeches
the entire body of 250 women, including 65 from Omaha, marched to the
State House, where even the aisles were already crowded with women.
Among the speakers were George W. Howard, the eminent professor of
history in the State University, and a number of prominent Nebraska
men and women. Six "antis" were present and their spokesman was Miss
Bronson of New York. The hearing lasted three hours. The bill was held
two months in the committee and finally was reported out and passed by
a vote of 20 to 13 on April 19. It was signed by Governor Keith
Neville on the 21st and gave women the suffrage for presidential
electors, all municipal and most county officers.[111]

The opponents immediately started an initiative petition to have the
law submitted to the voters and on July 22 it was suspended in
operation by the filing of a petition for a referendum on it by the
Anti-Suffrage Association. Mrs. Barkley with others after inspection
concluded it was not a bona fide petition. Accordingly she summoned
her board to discuss taking the proper legal steps to prove that it
was fraudulent and invalid. There was no money in the treasury with
which to undertake expensive litigation and there were those who
thought it wiser not to attempt it. The courage and determination of
Mrs. Barkley were the deciding factor and it was the same brave and
persistent effort that finally won the long-drawn-out legal battle. A
full account was given by Mrs. Draper Smith in the _Woman Citizen_ of
which the following is a part:

For the larger part of the session in 1917 the Senate had been
under great pressure from the public and the press to pass the
bone dry law that the House had almost unanimously adopted.
Nineteen members of the Senate belonged to the clique led by
representatives of the brewing interests. They fought for weeks
to secure the consent of the House to a bill that would have made
prohibition impossible of enforcement. Into this maelstrom the