e
Secretary of State, picking out and listing the forgeries, which
were found to have been scattered all over the State.

The request of the suffragists to the Secretary of State said
that the circulators had committed perjury in certifying that
these fictitious persons had affixed their names in their
presence; that many of the names written thereon were not placed
there, as the law required, in the presence of the circulator,
but that the petitions had been left in pool halls, soft drink
parlors, cigar stores and barber shops where everybody, including
minors, was invited to sign, the circulator later coming around
and gathering them up. It also said that many of the signatures
were obtained by infants incapable at law of properly circulating
or certifying to the petition sheets and that a number of
circulators named had engaged in a systematic course of fraud and
forgery, thereby making invalid all of the names. Attached were
twenty pages of exhibits in proof of these charges.

The evidence in Omaha was matched by that in fifty-nine other
counties taken by the referee and attorney.

The attorneys enjoined the Secretary of State from putting the
referendum on the ballot. Nineteen suffragists appeared as plaintiffs
in the case as follows: Edna M. Barkley, Gertrude L. Hardy, Katharine
Sumney, Ida Robbins, Grace Richardson, Margaretta Dietrich, Grace M.
Wheeler, Ella Brower, Ellen Ackerman, Henrietta Smith, Inez Philbrick,
Harriet M. Stewart, Mary Smith Hayward, Mamie Claflin, Margaret T.
Sheldon, Alice Howell, Ellen Gere, Eliza Ann Doyle, Katharine McGerr.
As the suit had been brought against the Secretary of State the
Attorney General appeared for him and was joined by the attorneys of
the women's Anti-Suffrage Association. They argued that the plaintiffs
were not legally entitled to sue because they were not electors. The
court upheld their right. The Secretary of State became convinced that
the petition was fraudulent and did not appear in the further
litigation. The suffrage forces were prepared with their evidence and
wished to proceed at once with the case but all the dilatory tactics
possible were used and it was not until the full legal time was about
to expire that the opponents were brought to the point on May 17,
1918. Mrs. Draper Smith's account continued:

Inspection of the original petition showed that of 116