When a Trailblazing Suffragist and a Crusading Prosecutor Teamed Up to Expose an Election Conspiracy

Stella Courtright Stimson was sitting in the gallery of the Indiana State Senate in February 1913, watching legislators haggle over a housing reform bill, when she was handed a note. A man was waiting outside looking to speak to her, alone. Stimson—a 50-year-old churchgoing mother of four with an oval face, high cheekbones, a strong brow and graying black hair—was a familiar sight in the chambers. She was known…