bor are striving.

This action was taken by both conventions after the amendment had been
submitted, and it was intended as a pledge of support. And yet the
following June these two bodies formed a new political party and refused
to put a woman suffrage plank in their platform! H. L. Loucks was
himself a candidate for governor on this Independent ticket, and in his
annual address at this time never mentioned woman suffrage. Before
adjourning, the convention passed a long resolution making seven or
eight declarations, among them one that "no citizen should be
disfranchised on account of sex," but, during the entire campaign, as
far as their party advocacy was concerned, this question was a dead
issue.[61]

The State Democratic Convention met at Aberdeen the following week, and
a committee of representative Dakota women was sent to present the
claims of the amendment. They were invited to seats on the platform and
there listened to an address by Hon. E. W. Miller, of Parker county,
land receiver of the Huron district, in which, according to the press
reports, "he declared that no decent, respectable woman asked for the
ballot; that the women who did so were a disgrace to their homes; that
when women voted men would have to suckle the babies," and used other
expressions of an indecent nature, "which were received with prolonged
and vigorous cheers." (Argus-Leader, June 16, 1890.)[62] Judge Bangs, of
Rapid City, who had brought in a minority report in favor of a suffrage
plank, supported it in an able and dignified speech, but it was
overwhelmingly voted down amidst great disorder. A large delegation of
Russians came to this convention wearing great yellow badges (the
brewers' color in South Dakota) lettered "Against woman suffrage and
Susan B. Anthony."

The Republican State Convention met in Mitchell, August 27. A suffrage
mass meeting was held the two days preceding, and every possible effort
made to secure a plank in the platform. Most of the national speakers
and a large body of earnest and influential South Dakota men and women
were present. Rev. Anna Shaw graphically relates an incident which
deserves a place in history:

When the Republicans had their State convention some of the leading
men promised that we should have a plank in the platform, so we
went down to see it through. We requested seats in the body of the
house for our delegation, which was composed of most of the
national sp