People's Pilot, Volume 6, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 March 1897 — MRS. COUGAR DEFEATED. [ARTICLE]

MRS. COUGAR DEFEATED.

Indiana Supreme Court Says Women Cannot Vote in That State. The Indiana Supreme Court on Wednesday decided that under the present constitution women cannot vote in Indiana. The case decided is the one in which Mrs. Helen M. Gougar of Lafayette appeared as an advocate last week. In answer to the contention that women are unrepresented by the ballot, the court holds that suffrage does not exist for the benefit of the individual, but for the benefit of the state itself; that the right of suffrage is, therefore, not a natural right to be exercised subject only to restriction, but is a civil right, to be exercised only by those to whom it has been expressly granted by positive law.