When the federal government consented to admit Utah as a state, a constitutional convention convened.250 Andrew ran as a Democrat for a delegate position. At election time Andrew interrupted a trip north in Evanston to go home and vote. He won the position as one of the 107 delegates (including 29 non-Mormons) who met for two months (from March 4 to May 8, 1895) in the newly completed City and County Building. The building had been constructed over opposition of the Mormon political party and thus symbolized the end of LDS political domination in Salt Lake City. Along with four other delegates, Andrew’s credentials were contested because his certificate of election had not been properly filed.251 The challenge was purely a political tactic, seeking to delay the seating of Elder John Henry Smith (who was among the five and the prime candidate for presidency of the convention). The tactic failed. Six of the delegates were or would become General Authorities.252
Andrew served on the eleven-member committee on Preamble and Declaration of Rights and the committee on Manufactures and Commerce. No contention arose over the issue of plural marriage, because the banning of polygamy was a condition of Utah’s admission as a state. Woman suffrage proved the most contested issue. It ultimately passed 75 to 14. Andrew spoke in favor of it.253 B. H. Roberts led the opposition.254 Andrew characterized Roberts’s principal address as “the greatest oration I ever heard.”255 Andrew’s journal for Thursday, March 28, 1895, reads:
At convention at 10:00. Listened this morning to B. H. Roberts against Woman’s Suffrage and in the afternoon to several others for it. Came home at about 5:00 p.m. and went for Rachel Simmons to deliver Ollie. At 7:50 p.m., March 28, 1895, our nine-pound baby boy was born, perfect, and Mother doing well. Wrote a couple of letters and read some. When the baby was washed I took the children in to see him. Claire had made up her mind for a girl; she was badly disappointed, had a crying spell.
The newspaper carried this item:
Delegate Andrew Kimball, of Salt Lake, is an ardent suffragist. Yet he is broad enough to be an enthusiastic admirer of Roberts’s intellect. Under such circumstances he has made up his mind that a nine-pound stranger who arrived at his home on Monday night shall be called ‘Roberts.’ The only thing that stands in the way is Mrs. Kimball. As she is an enthusiastic woman suffragist and fully understands the meaning of equal rights he has not yet carried the day.
Instead they named the baby Spencer Woolley Kimball.256
Ruth with baby Spencer, born 1895.
During the convention the delegates traveled to Logan to visit the Agricultural College. Citizens of Logan met them at the depot with carriages as bands played. Andrew rode from the depot up to the college in a one-horse buggy driven by his brother J. Golden. The governor, in a two-horse buggy, passed them going up the hill. Later, going down the hill, Golden left the governor’s carriage in the dust. The incident reflected Golden’s competitive character.257
Andrew practiced his signature before signing the Utah Constitution.258
252. Apostles John Henry Smith and Moses Thatcher, Presiding Bishop William B. Preston, and B. H. Roberts of the Seventy participated in the convention. Orson F. Whitney and Anthony W. Ivins became apostles.
