limited suffrage law was plunged. Only the most careful
leadership secured its final passage....

On the 21st of July the opponents caused to be filed with the
Secretary of State a petition asking that the law be referred to
the voters at the general election in 1918 for approval or
rejection. This petition contained the signatures of 32,896
persons who claimed to be legal voters of the State and to live
at the places designated as their legal residence.... Tact and
patience were employed to get Secretary of State Pool to the
point where he permitted the suffragists to make a copy. Eighteen
thousand names bore the marks of an Omaha residence. The others
were apparently gathered from two-fifths of the counties and
presumptively represented 5 per cent. of the legal voters, as
required by law. Suspicion that fraud and deception had been
used, both in getting genuine signatures and in padding the
lists, early gave way to positive conviction. When the
investigation was complete it was found that 16,460 of the 32,896
signatures were subject to court challenge and that at least
10,000 of them were the product of fraud, forgery and
misrepresentation. Prominent members of the bar volunteered their
services--T. J. Doyle, C. A. Sorenson, John M. Stewart and H. H.
Wilson of Lincoln, and Elmer E. Thomas and Francis A. Brogan of
Omaha. A petition to enjoin the Secretary of State from placing
the referendum on the election ballot was filed in February,
1918.

The Omaha workers were under the leadership of Mrs. H. C. Sumney,
vice-president of the State association, and Mrs. James
Richardson. They discovered that many of the residence addresses
given were in railroad yards, cornfields or vacant lots. Many
others were of men who had never lived at the addresses given;
many affirmed that they had never signed any such petition;
others that they had been induced to sign by the representation
of the solicitor that it was to submit the question of full
suffrage. The work of running down each of the 18,000 names
consumed days of arduous labor. It was also found that page after
page of the names were written by the same hand. Experts in
handwriting from the various banks in Lincoln spent night after
night poring over the original petitions in the office of th