Jasper County Democrat, Volume 23, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 July 1920 — G. O. P. KILLS WOMEN’S BILL [ARTICLE]

G. O. P. KILLS WOMEN’S BILL

Smother Measure to Give Female Voters Right to Hold Office and to Sit on Juries. Indianapolis, July 17. —Republican members of the general assembly now in session have played true to the form displayed by their state convention which refused to grant women places on the national dele-< gation by killing a bill designed to make female voters eligible to public offices. The measure, which was introduced in the house by Representative J. L. Axby, Democrat, of Lawrenceburg, and in the senate by Senator Edward P. Elsner, Democrat, of Seymour, has been apparently smothered to death by the Republican majority and it is doubtful If it will ever even be allowed to see the.daylight of publicity by being brought onto the floors of the legislature. The bill would make it possible shat “any female voter . . . who possesses the other qualifications prescribed by law, shall be eligible to every public office or employment created by any law or statute of this state, or any ordinance, by-law or resolution of any municipality of this state, anything in such law, statute, by-law, ordinance or resolution to the contrary notwithstanding.” It would also make women eligible to fill election boards and registration offices, and would grant them the right to serve on juries. It was the idea of the framers of the measure to give women an equal participation in state, county and municipal affairs inasmuch as they have been' granted the right to vote for presidential electors in this state. Although it is confidentially expected that the federal suffrage amendment will be ratified before November 2, there is a question in the minds of a great number of attorneys whether even then women would have the right under the present Indiana laws to hold office and to sit on juries. i Senator Elsner and Representative Axby said that while they had designed the bill for immediate con-* ditions, it would also add an additional safeguard to tl)e rights of women in case they are admitted to complete suffrage before the election. . The measure, however, was not looked upon kindly by the adminis- | tration crowd that is rushing through i Governor Goodrich’s “cut and dried” I cure-all program. The house bill was referred to the committee on elec- ' tions and when it came up ther# only -the lone Democratic member, Representative Roscue U. Baker, of ' Mt. Vernon defended it. The Repub--1 lican majority promptly recommended that it “be indefinitely postponed because of lack of merit at this tim’e.” o That was the end of the measure. Although the Democrats will attempt to get it on the floor of the’ house, there Is little prospect of its passage because of the Republican majority. Scarcely as ( much courtesy was, shown Senator Elsner’s measure in the senate. Although it had been referred to

the committee on election! there, it was found after several days of waiting carelessly lying around on the clerk’s desk. The clerk insisted that it was a mistake, but there is a well-defined belief among the Democrats of the senate, that. the Republicans do not care to have the measure come to the attention of the public.