CHAPTER I.

Our Task Outlined.

This is a story of the great event of the year 1921 in the progress of women towards complete equality with men. That event was the enactment, by the Wisconsin legislature, of the first Bill of Rights for American women. In a bulletin issued from the National Woman's Party headquarters in Washington, this event was appraised in the following language:

"With the signing of the bill this week by Governor Blaine, Wisconsin became the first State in the Union to remove women from a subject position in the law. It is also, so far as we know, the only place in the English-speaking world where women have equal rights with men. This is as significant for the women of the Nation as was the granting of suffrage by Wyoming in 1869."

The National Woman's Party, which was chiefly instrumental in securing the passage and ratification of the federal suffrage amendment, assembled in a national convention in Washington in February, 1921, and disbanding as a suffrage organization, reorganized, and voted that the next objective of the Woman's Party should be to remove the remaining forms of the subjection of women, beginning with the legal and proceeding as rapidly as possible 'to the other disabilities.

This story portrays the removal of the legal discriminations against women in the State of Wisconsin. It is written not only to tell what was done in our campaign, but to tell how it was done, so that women seeking similar legislation in other states may have the benefit of our experiences.

In April, 1921, I received from the National Woman's Party headquarters in Washington a tentative draft of a bill which

the National Woman's Party planned to have introduced into Congress. This bill, designed to remove all legal discriminations against women which it was in the power of Congress to remove, was then being perfected by some of the leading lawyers of the United States. It was then planned that when the bill was completed it should be introduced into the senate by Senator Curtis of Kansas. Here is a copy of that bill:

"To abolish discriminations against women on account of sex.

"Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled.

"That in so far as the laws of the United States, including those pertaining to the District of Columbia, confer, regulate or define the right of (1) freedom of contract, (2) choice of citizenship and residence, (3) guardianship or control of children, (4) jury service, (5) holding public office or position through certification by the Civil Service, election or court order, and (6) control, disposition or acquisition of property, there shall be no discrimination or distinction against women by reason of sex or coverture and women shall have the same rights and privileges as

men:

"Provided, that this act shall not amend or affect any law relating to the labor of women or minimum wage for women."

A letter accompanying a copy of this bill suggested that I have a similar bill drawn to abrogate in every respect the common law disabilities of women in the State of Wisconsin, and, as soon as possible, have this bill introduced into the Wisconsin legislature.

No rights or privileges designated in the above bill, except those relating to choice of citizenship and the civil service commission, could be conferred by Congress upon the citizens of the States, so it was necessary to have a separate bill passed by each State legislature.

Wisconsin's laws, like those of nearly all of the other States,

were based upon the old English "common law," brought over to this country by the early colonists. All women were, according to the common law, legally inferior to men, and during marriage a woman lost her legal identity entirely: husband and wife were considered one person and that person was the husband. The married woman's property, her earnings, her labor, and her children belonged to her husband and were entirely under his control.

The harshness of the common law had been modified in many respects during the last century. Women now possessed the right of suffrage and married women had won certain personal and property rights. But Wisconsin had never specifically repudiated the common law doctrine of woman's inferiority. It still prevailed in all cases in which a special law had not been passed to the contrary. In many respects, therefore, Wisconsin women were ruled by the laws of the sixteenth century.

CHAPTER II.

Starting Our Campaign.

I was at a loss how to begin. I had no previous experience with a state legislature, nor did I know any member of the Wisconsin legislature, nor any person connected with the State government at Madison. Neither did I know anyone else in Madison. I had once met Miss Gena Thompson, who was executive secretary of the Wisconsin Woman's Progressive Association, and Mrs. Harry Glicksman, both of Madison, when I had been there a few months before to witness the inauguration of the present administration.

I decided to write to the Governor and ask him how to go about having such a bill introduced into and passed by the legislature. This I did, and received the following reply:

Executive Chamber, Madison, Wis., April 18, 1921.
Dear Mrs. Putnam:

Replying to your favor of April 14, beg to state that
the only way now to have a bill introduced in the legis-
lature is to have it introduced by a committee, and inas-
much as the legislature may be nearing a possible ad-
journment in May, you perhaps might want to give the
matter immediate attention.

I would therefore suggest that you take the matter
up with a committee of the legislature at your earliest
convenience.
Yours very truly,

JOHN J. BLAINE,

Governor.

This did not simplify the matter very much for me. I had no idea what committee was the best one to introduce this bill. I was fearful of getting it into a committee, the majority of whose members would be antagonistic to a woman's rights bill, or into a committee whose members would be indifferent to such a bill and would fail to push it, even though they would be willing to introduce it. I was in a quandary until one day the newspapers reported that a bill, called the Conant jury bill, which provided for women sitting on juries, had that day been defeated in the Assembly. This bill had been before the legislature for some time and had previously passed the Senate.. I then learned that Senator Conant, who had introduced and sponsored this bill, was chairman of the Senate Judiciary committee, and also that the Judiciary committee was the logical committee to introduce this bill into the Senate, because it was the committee to which the bill would be referred no matter who introduced it.

This combination seemed a piece of good luck, so I learned this committee's meeting days, and made arrangements to appear before it on Thursday, May 12.

I wrote to Miss Zona Gale of Portage and to Miss Ada James of Richland Center, who were members of the National Woman's Party, asking them to meet me in Madison on Thursday and go before the committee with me.