A Partial Victory for Pearl

I'm sure Pearl Ols was happy to read the newspaper reports, late in the winter of 1917, that Indiana women had won a limited right to vote — limited, but less so than in any other state at the time.

A suffrage bill had been introduced at every Indiana legislative session starting in 1907, and at every session had failed. According to a contemporary source, "[m]ost of the [legislators] appeared to regard woman suffrage as a joke with which they were merely to have sport and fun in the 61 days of their sessions." By 1915 attitudes had changed sufficiently that the issue was at least treated as a serious matter, but even that year the suffrage bill did not make it out of committee before the end of the legislative session.

Women's-rights activists took a lesson from that failure and in 1917 got identical bills introduced simultaneously into the house and the senate, to speed the process along.

By going the legislative route, women would have to accept a limited vote, since the right to vote for constitutional offices would require an amendment to the state constitution, a far more complex and time-consuming process, and far less likely to succeed. This pragmatic position was supported by the largest women's-rights group in the state, the Legislative Council of Indiana Women. The Council figured that they could reach their ultimate goal more surely by the indirect route, moving in steps from limited to unlimited voting.

And finally, some congruence of improved tactics and changed attitudes brought about success. The woman suffrage bill (known as the Masten-McKinley bill for the two senators who introduced it) passed the senate and then the house in late February, then went to Governor James Goodrich's desk for signature.

He intended to sign it, but other matters kept diverting his attention, until the morning of February 28, 1917, when his wife, Cora, came into his office and (according to a contemporary source) asked:

"When are you going to sign the woman suffrage bill?"

Governor Goodrich, who has been the busiest man in seventeen states ever since the session of the legislature opened, smiled and remarked that he would sign the bill just as soon as he could get at it.

"This is a good time to sign it, right now," Mrs. Goodrich said.

And the governor thought so, too, for he took his pen in hand and attached his "James P. Goodrich" to give Indiana women their first opportunity to vote at elections.

The governor said afterward that he signed the bill in the presence of the best witness in the world.

Thus Indiana women who met the same requirements as male voters finally won the right to vote for non-constitutional offices — which meant they could not vote for governor, secretary of state, judges of the supreme or circuit courts, county sheriffs, auditors, treasurers and commissioners, etc. There remained, however, a good number of offices for which they could vote, including presidential electors, attorney general, judges of the appellate, superior, criminal, probate and juvenile courts, county council, township trustee, all elective city and town officials, "and for all other elective officers not provided for in the state constitution."


Sources:
♦ Searles, Ellis. "Indiana Women's Victory Sweeping." Hobart News 1 Mar. 1917.
♦ "Signs Suffrage Bill with His Wife as a Witness." Washington Herald (Washington, IN) 1 Mar. 1917. http://www.newspaperarchive.com (accessed 7 Nov. 2010).