Cut Bank pioneer press. [volume] (Cut Bank, Mont.) 1909-current, 1916-11-24
Energetic Woman Had Sc
cured Promise of Much
Support When the Leaders
Ascertained What She Was
Doing; Vote in Convention
Was Is For; 43 Against.

paS vi OAS WV VI l. |
tana met in Helena the other day
around the banquet board. They rep
resented in the aggregate five hun
dred million dollars in money, but if
Senator w. A. Clark had not been
present the combined wealth Of the
assemblage would have been less than
one million. They constitute the mem
bership of the Society of the Trainers
Of the Constitution, the men who made
the Magma Charta of Montana.
1t was brought out at the banquet
that suffrage for women, granted by
constitutional amendment in 1914,
came near being incorporated by a
"fluke'' into the constitution of the
state when it was drafted in 1889.
The suffragist, who came near "put-
ting one over" on the convention, was
the wife Of Perry w. Meadow, n
of the delegates, who, before she was
married, had operated a real estate
office at Billings. Her maiden name
was Temlinson and she was popularity
known as "Captain Tom" She is
believed to have been the first bust
HISS WOIudA VI JhO obdOC Illu d1CSl OhS
married she had a large share in the
management of Mr.. Meadows Spot
ted Horse mine near Maiden, as her
husband was a cripple from paralysis.
She is said to have taken the 120. mile
stage ride from Billings to Maiden
scores of times in behalf of her hus-
bands interests.
Obliged to Resort
To Buttonholing.
This woman, who played a mans,
as well as a women's. part in the
world, wanted the vote for herself and
the sisterhood of women and when the
constitutional convention was called
she accompanied her husband to Hell
ena. She opened, Immediately, her
campaign for suffrage, but she was
obliged to resort to buttonholing the
delegates as they passed in and out of
= the county court house where the con-
vention was held as the sergeant at
arms refused to permit her to carry
on her propaganda on the floor, and
the delegates, as a body, refused to
hear her. The greater part of the
time she occupied a seat in the fore
most row Of the balcony and she be-
came conspicuous from her habit of
leaning far over the railing to catch
any word from a delegate that might
indicate how he stood on the question
of "votes for women.'
Delegates at Reunion Recall
Near Suffrage Victory.
There were 80 democrats and 36 re-
publicans among the delegates, and
Mrs. Meadow undertook to obtain an
interview with each OF the rs. For
fear the cause might become a parti-
san issue she buttonholeG a democrat
and a republican alternately.
How nearly "Captain Tom" sue
ceeded in her campaign to strike out
the word "male" in the section relat-
ing to suffrage and inserting "with-
out regard to sex" after the word
"person" was recalled by the mem
bers of the society in the banquet chat.
"The most determined opponents of
suffrage for women did not realize
how near the cause had come to win
ming out until they discovered that
Mrs. Meadow had obtained pledges
from nearly half the delegates OF each
party" said S. S. Hobson, who was a
delegate from the same county as Per-
nv McAdow-Fergus county. "lm-
mediately there was a gathering OF the
clans and the leaders roundly scolded
the more accommodating delegates for
Welding to a woman's whites.
Major Maginnis and Toole y
Rally Anti Suffrage Forces.
"Maior Martin Maginnis and Joseph
K. Toole, known in history as the
first elected governor of Montana, adj
dressed the convention, denouncino
and ~ridiculing the proposal to give
women the vote. When the vote was
taken it was 43 to Is against equal
suffrage. After that Captain Tom
was seen no longer in the balcony
or the lobby, but the next morning
there was a bouquet of roses on the
desk of each delegate except where
Major Maginnis and Toole sat. o.
their desks were bouquets of thistles.'
The leaders of the convention
were determined that nothing of 6
"freak" nature should enter into the
constitution, but equal suffrage was
not their only worry. A memoria
from the Methodist conference wa.
presented praying for a clause nre
scribing a strict observance of the
Sabbath and even among the delegates
themselves there were advocates o.
"blue" laws. Prohibition was no
vet an issue, but the M~ethodists want
ed to close the saloons and nearly ev
erything else on Sundays by an ada
mantine provision of the constitution
A great variety of OCCUPATIONS wa
represented among the delegates, bu
the lawyers were probably in a ma