Note 492 — Chapter LII

Ex-Governor Hoyt in his public speeches frequently gives this bird's-eye view of Bright's domestic and political discussions: "Betty, it's a shame that I should be a member of the legislature and make laws for such a woman as you. You are a great deal better than I am; you know a great deal more, and you would make a better member of the Assembly than I, and you know it. I have been thinking about it and have made up my mind that I will go to work and do everything in my power to give you the ballot. Then you may work out the rest in your own way." So he went over and talked with other members of the legislature. They smiled. But he got one of the lawyers to help him draw up a short bill, which he introduced. It was considered and discussed. People smiled generally. There was not much expectation that anything of that sort would be done; but this was a shrewd fellow, who managed the party card in such a way as to get, as he believed, enough votes to carry the measure before it was brought to the test. I will show you a little behind the curtain, so far as I can draw it. Thus he said to the Democrats: "We have a Republican governor and a Democratic Assembly. Now, then, if we can carry this bill through the Assembly and the governor vetoes it, we shall have made a point, you know; we shall have shown our liberality and lost nothing. But keep still; don't say anything about it." They promised. He then went to the Republicans and told them that the Democrats were going to support his measure, and that if they did not want to lose capital they had better vote for it too. He didn't think there would be enough of them to carry it, but the vote would be on record and thus defeat the game of the other party. And they likewise agreed to vote for it. So when the bill came to a vote it went right through! The members looked at, each other in astonishment, for they hadn't intended to do it, quite. Then they laughed and said it was a good joke, but they had "got the governor in a fix." So the bill went, in the course of time, to John A. Campbell, who was then governor—the first governor of the territory of Wyoming—and he promptly signed it! His heart was right. He saw that it was long-deferred justice, and so signed it as gladly as Abraham Lincoln wrote his name to the Proclamation of Emancipation of the slaves. Of course the women were astounded! If a whole troop of angels had come down with flaming swords for their vindication, they would not have been much more astonished than they were when that bill became a law and the women of Wyoming were thus clothed with the habiliments of citizenship.